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THE BRAVEST BOY IN NORWAY, 






THE NORSEUND SERIES 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


Stories of Boy- Life in the Land 
OF THE Midnight Sun 


BY 

HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN 


ILLUSTRATED 


NINTH EDITION 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1907 



Copyright, 1892, tv 
CaiARLES SCRIBNER’S SON^- 




TROW DIRECTORY 

ARINTINb BOOKblNOIMO COMPANV 
4EW YORK 






NOTE 

The Author’s acknowledgments are due to 
Messrs. Harper & Brothers, the publishers of Har~ 
pers Young People^ in which magazine three of the 
stories in this volume, “ The Wonder Child,” 
“ Bonnyboy,” and “ The Child of Luck,” first ap- 
peared. 



CONTENTS 


PACK 

The Battle of the Rafts, i 

Biceps Grimlund’s Christmas Vacation, ... 29 

The Nixy’s Strain, . » , . . .58 

The Wonder Child, 78 

“The Sons of the Vikings,” 96 

Paul Jespersen’s Masquerade, . . . , . 128 

Lady Clare, 142 

Bonnyboy, *179 

The Child of Luck, 201 

The Bear that had a Bank Account, . . . 227 










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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Bravest Boy in Norway, 

The War Begun, 

Nils asks the School-master for His Fiddle, 
“ Pull out the Reefs ! ” 

The Sons of the Vikings rushed Forward, 

To THE Rescue, 

Paul comes Down the Chimney, . , . 
“Will You now sit Down?” . • • 


y 

Frontispiece 

FACING P/^GE 

. . lo / 

. . 62 ^ 

. . 92 / 

. - II 2 / 

. . 126 / 

. . 138/ 

. . 188 






THE BATTLE OF THE RAFTS 


I. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE WAR 

A DEADLY feud was raging among the boys of 
Numedale. The East-Siders hated the West-Siders, 
and thrashed them when they got a chance ; and 
the West-Siders, when fortune favored them, re- 
turned the compliment with interest. It required 
considerable courage for a boy to venture, unat- 
tended by comrades, into the territory of the en- 
emy; and no one took the risk unless dire neces- 
sity compelled him. 

The hostile parties had played at war so long 
that they had forgotten that it was play; and now 
were actually inspired with the emotions which 
they had formerly simulated. Under the leader- 
ship of their chieftains, Halvor Reitan and Viggo 
Hook, they held councils of war, sent out scouts, 
planned midnight surprises, and fought at times 
mimic battles. I say mimic battles, because no one 
was ever killed ; but broken heads and bruised limbs 
many a one carried home from these engagements. 


2 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


and unhappily one boy, named Peer Oestmo, had 
an eye put out by an arrow. 

It was a great consolation to him that he became 
a hero to all the West-Siders and was promoted for 
bravery in the field to the rank of first lieutenant. 
He had the sympathy of all his companions in arms 
and got innumerable bites of apples, cancelled post- 
age stamps, and colored advertising-labels in token 
of their esteem. 

But the principal effect of this first serious wound 
was to invest the war with a breathless and all-ab- 
sorbing interest. It was now no longer “ make be- 
lieve,” but deadly earnest. Blood had flowed; 
insults had been exchanged in due order, and of- 
fended honor cried for vengeance. 

It was fortunate that the river divided the West- 
Siders from the East-Siders, or it would have been 
difficult to tell what might have happened. Viggo 
Hook, the West-Side general, was a handsome, 
high-spirited lad of fifteen, who was the last person 
to pocket an injury, as long as red blood flowed in 
his veins, as he was wont to express it. He was 
the eldest son of Colonel Hook of the regular army, 
and meant some day to be a Von Moltke or a Na- 
poleon. He felt in his heart that he was destined 
for something great; and in conformity with this 
conviction assumed a superb behavior, which his 
comrades found very admirable. 

He had the gift of leadership in a marked degree. 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 


3 


and established his authority by a due mixture of 
kindness and severity. Those boys whom he hon- 
ored with his confidence were absolutely attached 
to him. Those whom, with magnificent arbitrari- 
ness, he punished and persecuted, felt meekly that 
they had probably deserved it ; and if they had not, 
it was somehow in the game. 

There never was a more absolute king than 
Viggo, nor one more abjectly courted and ad- 
mired. And the amusing part of it was that he 
was at heart a generous and good-natured lad, but 
possessed with a lofty ideal of heroism, which re- 
quired above all things that whatever he said or did 
must be striking. He dramatized, as it were, every 
phrase he uttered and every act he performed, and 
modelled himself alternately after Napoleon and 
Wellington, as he had seen them represented in 
the old engravings which decorated the walls in 
his father’s study. 

He had read much about heroes of war, ancient 
and modern, and he lived about half his own life 
imagining himself by turns all sorts of grand char- 
acters from history or fiction. 

His costume was usually in keeping with his own 
conception of these characters, in so far as his 
scanty opportunities permitted. An old, broken 
sword of his father’s, which had been polished un- 
til it “ flashed ” properly, was girded to a brass- ^ 
mounted belt about his waist ; an ancient, gold- 


4 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


braided, military cap, which was much too large, 
covered his curly head; and four tarnished brass 
buttons, displaying the Golden Lion of Norway, 
gave a martial air to his blue jacket, although the 
rest were plain horn. 

But quite independently of his poor trappings 
Viggo was to his comrades an august personage. I 
doubt if the Grand Vizier feels more flattered and 
gratified by the favor of the Sultan than little Mar- 
cus Henning did, when Viggo condescended to be 
civil to him. 

Marcus was small, round-shouldered, spindle- 
shanked, and freckle-faced. His hair was coarse, 
straight, and the color of maple sirup ; his nose was 
broad and a little flattened at the point, and his 
clothes had a knack of never fitting him. They 
were made to grow in and somehow he never caught 
up with them, he once said, with no intention of 
being funny. His father, who was Colonel Hook’s 
nearest neighbor, kept a modest country shop, in 
which you could buy anything, from dry goods and 
groceries to shoes and medicines. You would have 
to be very ingenious to ask for a thing which Hen- 
ning could not supply. The smell in the store car- 
ried out the same idea ; for it was a mixture of all 
imaginable smells under the sun. 

Now, it was the chief misery of Marcus that, 
sleeping, as he did, in the room behind the store, he 
had become so impregnated with this curious com 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 


5 


posite smell that it followed him like an odoriferous 
halo, and procured him a number of unpleasant 
nicknames. The principal ingredient was salted 
herring; but there was also a suspicion of tarred 
ropes, plug tobacco, prunes, dried codfish, and oiled 
tarpaulin. 

It was not so much kindness of heart as respect 
for his own dignity which made Viggo refrain 
from calling Marcus a “ Muskrat ” or a “ Smelling- 
Bottle.” And yet Marcus regarded this gracious 
forbearance on his part as the mark of a noble soul. 
He had been compelled to accept these offensive 
nicknames, and, finding rebellion vain, he had 
finally acquiesced in them. 

He never loved to be called a “ Muskrat,” though 
he answered to the name mechanically. But when 
Viggo addressed him as “ base minion,” in his wrath, 
or as “ Sergeant Henning,” in his sunnier moods, 
Marcus felt equally complimented by both terms, 
and vowed in his grateful soul eternal allegiance 
and loyalty to his chief. He bore kicks and cuffs 
with the same admirable equanimity ; never com- 
plained when he was thrown into a dungeon in a 
deserted pigsty for breaches of discipline of which he 
was entirely guiltless, and trudged uncomplainingly 
through rain and sleet and snow, as scout or spy, or 
what-not, at the behest of his exacting commander. 

It was all so very real to him that he never 
would have thought of doubting the importance of 


6 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


his mission. He was rather honored by the trust 
reposed in him, and was only intent upon earning a 
look or word of scant approval from the superb per- 
sonage whom he worshipped. 

Halvor Reitan, the chief of the East-Sidcrs, was 
a big, burly peasant lad, with a pimpled face, fierce 
blue eyes, and a shock of towy hair. But he had 
muscles as hard as twisted ropes, and sinews like steel. 

He had the reputation, of which he was very 
proud, of being the strongest boy in the valley, and 
though he was scarcely sixteen years old, he boasted 
that he could whip many a one of twice his years. 
He had, in fact, been so praised for his strength 
that he never neglected to accept, or even to create, 
opportunities for displaying it. 

His manner was that of a bully ; but it was van- 
ity and not malice which made him always spoil 
for a fight. He and Viggo Hook had attended the 
parson’s Confirmation Class ” together, and it was 
there their hostility had commenced. 

Halvor, who conceived a dislike of the tall, rather 
dainty, and disdainful Viggo, with his aquiline nose 
and clear, aristocratic features, determined, as he 
expressed it, to take him down a peg or two ; and 
the more his challenges were ignored the more 
persistent he grew in his insults. 

He dubbed Viggo “ Missy.” He ran against 
him with such violence in the hall that he knocked 
his head against the wainscoting; he tripped him 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 


7 


up on the stairs by means of canes and sticks ; and 
he hired his partisans who sat behind Viggo to 
stick pins into him, while he recited his lessons. 
And when all these provocations proved unavailing 
he determined to dispense with any pretext, but 
simply thrash his enemy within an inch of his life 
at the first opportunity which presented itself. He 
grew to hate Viggo and was always aching to mo- 
lest him. 

Halvor saw plainly enough that Viggo despised 
him, and refused to notice his challenges, not so 
much because he was afraid of him, as because he 
regarded himself as a superior being who could af- 
ford to ignore insults from an inferior, without loss 
of dignity. 

During recess the so-called “genteel boys,” who 
had better clothes and better manners than the 
peasant lads, separated themselves from the rest, 
and conversed or played with each other. No one 
will wonder that such behavior was exasperating to 
the poorer boys. I am far from defending Viggo’s 
behavior in this instance. He was here, as every- 
where, the acknowledged leader ; and therefore 
more cordially hated than the rest. It was the 
Roundhead hating the Cavalier ; and the Cavalier 
making merry at the expense of the Roundhead. 

There was only one boy in the Confirmation 
Class who was doubtful as to what camp should 
claim him, and that was little Marcus Henning. 


8 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


He was a kind of amphibious animal who, as he 
thought, really belonged nowhere. His father was 
of peasant origin, but by his prosperity and his oc- 
cupation had risen out of the class to which he was 
formerly attached, without yet rising into the ranks 
of the gentry, who now, as always, looked with 
scorn upon interlopers. Thus it came to pass that 
little Marcus, whose inclinations drew him toward 
Viggo’s party, was yet forced to associate with the 
partisans of Halvor Reitan. 

It was not a vulgar ambition “ to pretend to be 
better than he was ” which inspired Marcus with a 
desire to change his allegiance, but a deep, unrea- 
soning admiration for Viggo Hook. He had never 
seen any one who united so many superb qualities, 
nor one who looked every inch as noble as he did. 

It did not discourage him in the least that his 
first approaches met with no cordial reception. His 
offer to communicate to Viggo where there was a 
hawk’s nest was coolly declined, and even the at- 
tractions of fox dens and rabbits’ burrows were val- 
iantly resisted. Better luck he had with a pair of 
fan-tail pigeons, his most precious treasure, which 
Viggo rather loftily consented to accept, for, like 
most genteel boys in the valley, he was an ardent 
pigeon-fancier, and had long vainly importuned his 
father to procure him some of the rarer breeds. 

He condescended to acknowledge Marcus’s greet- 
ing after that, and to respond to his diffident “ Good- 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 9 

morning” and ‘‘Good-evening,” and Marcus was 
duly grateful for such favors. He continued to woo 
his idol with raisins and ginger-snaps from the store, 
and other delicate attentions, and bore the snubs 
which often fell to his lot with humility and patience. 

But an event soon occurred which was destined 
to change the relations ot the two boys. Halvor 
Reitan called a secret meeting of his partisans, 
among whom he made the mistake to include Mar- 
cus, and agreed with them to lie in ambush at the 
bend of the road, where it entered the forest, and at- 
tack Viggo Hook and his followers. Then, he ob- 
served, he would “ make him dance a jig that would 
take the starch out of him.” 

The others declared that this would be capital 
fun, and enthusiastically promised their assistance. 
Each one selected his particular antipathy to thrash, 
though all showed a marked preference for Viggo, 
whom, however, for reason of politeness, they were 
obliged to leave to the chief. Only one boy sat 
silent, and made no offer to thrash anybody, and 
that was Marcus Henning. 

“Well, Muskrat,” cried Halvor Reitan, “whom 
are you going to take on your conscience ? ” 

“No one,” said Marcus. 

“ Put the Muskrat in your pocket, Halvor,” sug- 
gested one of the boys ; “ he is so small, and he has 
got such a hard bullet head, you might use him as a 
club.” 


10 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


“ Well, one thing is sure,” shouted Halvor, as a 
dark suspicion shot through his brain, “if you 
don’t keep mum, you will be a mighty sick coon 
the day after to-morrow.” 

Marcus made no reply, but got up quietly, pulled 
a rubber sling from his pocket, and began, with the 
most indifferent manner in the world, to shoot stones 
down the river. He managed during this exercise, 
which everybody found perfectly natural, to get out 
of the crowd, and, without seeming to have any pur- 
pose whatever, he continued to put a couple of hun- 
dred yards between himself and his companion. 

“Look a-here. Muskrat,” he heard Halvor cry, 
“ you promised to keep mum.” 

Marcus, instead of answering, took to his heels 
and ran. 

“ Boys, the scoundrel is going to betray us ! ” 
screamed the chief. “ Now come, boys ! We’ve 
got to catch him, dead or alive.” 

A volley of stones, big and little, was hurled after 
the fugitive, who now realizing his position ran for 
dear life. The stones hailed down round about 
him ; occasionally one vicious missile would whiz 
past his ear, and send a cold shudder through him. 
The tramp of his pursuers sounded nearer and nearer, 
and his one chance of escape was to throw himself 
into the only boat, which he saw on this side of the 
river, and push out into the stream before he was 
overtaken. 



THE WAR IJEGUN 





THE BATTLE OF THE RAFTS 


II 


He had his doubts as to whether he could accom- 
plish this, for the blood rushed and roared in his 
ears, the' hill-side billowed under his feet, and it 
seemed as if the trees were all running a race in the 
opposite direction, in order to betray him to his 
enemies. 

A stone gave him a thump in the back, but though 
he felt a gradual heat spreading from the spot which 
it hit, he was conscious of no pain. 

Presently a larger missile struck him in the neck, 
and he heard a breathless snorting close behind him. 
That was the end ; he gave himself up for lost, for 
those boys would have no mercy on him if they 
captured him. 

But in the next moment he heard a fall and an 
oath, and the voice was that of Halvor Reitan. He 
breathed a little more freely as he saw the river 
run with its swelling current at his feet. Quite 
mechanically, without clearly knowing what he did, 
he sprang into the boat, grabbed a boat-hook, and 
with three strong strokes pushed himself out into 
the deep water. 

At that instant a dozen of his pursuers reached 
the river bank, and he saw dimly their angry faces 
and threatening gestures, and heard the stones drop 
into the stream about him. Fortunately the river 
was partly dammed, in order to accumulate water 
for the many saw-mills under the falls. It would 
therefore have been no very difficult feat to paddle 


12 


B O Y HO OD IN NOR WA Y 


across, if his aching arms had had an atom of strength 
left in them. As soon as he was beyond the reach 
of flying stones he seated himself in the stern, took 
an oar, and after having bathed his throbbing fore- 
head in the cold water, managed, in fifteen minutes, 
to make the further bank. Then he dragged him- 
self wearily up the hill-side to Colonel Hook’s man- 
sion, and when he had given his message to Viggo, 
fell into a dead faint. 

How could Viggo help being touched by such 
devotion ? He had seen the race through a field- 
glass from his pigeon-cot, but had been unable to 
make out its meaning, nor had he remotely dreamed 
that he was himself the cause of the cruel chase. 
He called his mother, who soon perceived that Mar- 
cus’s coat was saturated with blood in the back, and 
undressing him, she found that a stone, hurled by a 
sling, had struck him, slid a few inches along the 
rib, and had lodged in the fleshy part of his left side. 

A doctor was now sent for ; the stone was cut out 
without difficulty, and Marcus was invited to re- 
main as Viggo’s guest until he recovered. He felt 
so honored by this invitation that he secretly prayed 
he might remain ill for a month ; but the wound 
showed an abominable readiness to heal, and before 
three days were past Marcus could not feign any ail- 
ment which his face and eye did not belie. 

He then, with a heavy heart, betook himself 
homeward, and installed himself once more among 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 13 

his accustomed smells behind the store, and pon- 
dered sadly on the caprice of the fate which had 
made Viggo a high-nosed, handsome gentleman, 
and him — Marcus Henning — an under-grown, 
homely, and unrefined drudge. But in spite of his 
failure to answer this question, there was joy within 
him at the thought that he had saved this handsome 
face of Viggo’s from disfigurement, and — who could 
know ? — perhaps would earn a claim upon his grati- 
tude. 

It was this series of incidents which led to the 
war between the East-Siders and the West-Siders. 
It was a mere accident that the partisans of Viggo 
Hook lived on the west side of the river, and those 
of Halvor Reitan mostly on the east side. 

Viggo, who had a chivalrous sense of fair play, 
would never have molested any one without good 
cause ; but now his own safety, and, as he persuaded 
himself, even his life, was in danger, and he had no 
choice but to take measures in self-defence. He 
surrounded himself with a trusty body-guard, which 
attended him wherever he went. He sent little 
Marcus, in whom he recognized his most devoted 
follower, as scout into the enemy’s territory, and 
swelled his importance enormously by lending him 
his field-glass to assist him in his perilous observa- 
tions. 

Occasionally an unhappy East-Sider was captured 
on the west bank of the river, court-martialed, and. 


14 


BOYHOOD 2 N NORWAY 


with much solemnity, sentenced to death as a spy, 
but paroled for an indefinite period, until it should 
suit his judges to execute the sentence. The East- 
Siders, when they captured a West-Sider, went 
to work with less ceremony ; they simply thrashed 
their captive soundly and let him run, if run he 
could. 

Thus months passed. The parson’s Confirmation 
Class ceased, and both the opposing chieftains were 
confirmed on the same day ; but Viggo stood at the 
head of the candidates, while Halvor had his place 
at the bottom.* 

During the following winter the war was prose- 
cuted with much zeal, and the West-Siders, in imi- 
tation of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, armed 
themselves with cross-bows, and lay in ambush in 
the underbrush, aiming their swift arrows against 
any intruder who ventured to cross the river. 

Nearly all the boys in the valley between twelve 
and sixteen became enlisted on the one side or the 
other, and there were councils of war, marches, and 
counter-marches without number, occasional skir- 
mishes, but no decisive engagements. Peer Oestmo, 
to be sure, had his eye put out by an arrow, as has 
already been related, for the East-Siders were not 

In Norway confirmation is always preceded by a public exami- 
nation of the candidates in the aisle of the church. The order in 
which they are arranged is supposed to indicate their attainments, bur 
does, as a rule, indicate the rank and social position of their parents. 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 1 5 

slow to imitate the example of their enemies, in 
becoming expert archers. 

Marcus Henning was captured by a hostile out- 
post, and was being conducted to the abode of the 
chief, when, by a clever stratagem, he succeeded in 
making his escape. 

The East-Siders despatched, under a flag of truce, 
a most insulting caricature of General Viggo, rep- 
resenting him as a rooster that seemed on the point 
of bursting with an excess of dignity. 

These were the chief incidents of the winter, 
though there were many others of less consequence 
that served to keep the boys in a delightful state of 
excitement. They enjoyed the war keenly, though 
they pretended to themselves that they were be- 
ing ill-used and suffered terrible hardships. They 
grumbled at their duties, brought complaints against 
their officers to the general, and did, in fact, all the 
things that real soldiers would have been likely to 
do under similar circumstances. 


11 . 

THE CLASH OF ARMS 

When the spring is late in Norway, and the heat 
comes with a sudden rush, the mountain streams 
plunge with a tremendous noise down into the val- 
leys, and the air is filled far and near with the 


1 6 BO YHOOD IN NOR WA Y 

boom and roar of rushing waters. The glaciers 
groan, and send their milk-white torrents down to- 
ward the ocean. The snow-patches in the forest 
glens look gray and soiled, and the pines perspire a 
delicious resinous odor which cheers the soul with 
the conviction that spring has come. 

But the peasant looks anxiously at the sun and 
the river at such times, for he knows that there 
is danger of inundation. The lumber, which the 
spring floods set afloat in enormous quantities, is 
carried by the rivers to the cities by the sea ; there 
it is sorted according to the mark it bears, showing 
the proprietor, and exported to foreign countries. 

In order to prevent log-jams, which are often at- 
tended with terrible disasters, men are stationed 
night and day at the narrows of the rivers. The 
boys, to whom all excitement is welcome, are apt 
to congregate in large numbers at such places, 
assisting or annoying the watchers, riding on 
the logs, or teasing the girls who stand up on the 
hillside, admiring the daring feats of the lumbermen. 

It was on such a spring day, when the air was 
pungent with the smell of sprouting birch and pine, 
that General Viggo and his trusty army had be- 
taken themselves to the cataract to share in the 
sport. They were armed with their bows, as usual, 
knowing that they were always liable to be sur- 
prised by their vigilant enemy. Nor were they in 
this instance disappointed, for Halvor Reitan, with 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 1 7 

fifty or sixty followers, was presently visible on the 
east side, and it was a foregone conclusion that if 
they met there would be a battle. 

The river, to be sure, separated them, but the 
logs were at times so densely packed that it was 
possible for a daring lad to run far out into the 
river, shoot his arrow and return to shore, leaping 
from log to log. The Reitan party was the first to 
begin this sport, and an arrow hit General Viggo’s 
hat before he gave orders to repel the assault. 

Cool and dignified as he was, he could not con- 
sent to skip and jump' on the slippery logs, par- 
ticularly as he had no experience in this difficult 
exercise, while the enemy apparently had much. 
Paying no heed to the jeers of the lumbermen, who 
supposed he was afraid, he drew his troops up in 
line and addressed them as follows : 

“ Soldiers : You have on many previous occa- 
sions given me proof of your fidelity to duty and 
your brave and fearless spirit. I know that I can, 
now as always, trust you to shed glory upon our 
arms, and to maintain our noble fame and honor- 
able traditions. 

** The enemy is before us. You have heard and 
seen his challenge. It behooves us to respond 
gallantly. To jump and skip like rabbits is unmili- 
tary and unsoldierlike. I propose that each of us 
shall select two large logs, tie them together, pro- 
cure, if possible, a boat-hook or an oar, and, sitting 


1 8 BO YHOOD IN NOR WA Y 

astride the logs, boldly push out into the river. If 
we can advance in a tolerably even line, which I 
think quite possible, we can send so deadly a charge 
into the ranks of our adversaries that they will be 
compelled to flee. Then we will land on the east 
side, occupy the heights, and rout our foe. 

“ Now let each man do his duty. Forward, 
march ! ” 

The lumbermen, whose sympathies were with 
the East-Siders, found this performance highly 
diverting, but Viggo allowed himself in nowise 
to be disturbed by their laughter or jeers. He 
marched his troops down to the river-front, com- 
manded “ Rest arms I ” and repeated once more his 
instructions ; then, flinging off his coat and waist- 
coat, he seized a boat-hook and ran some hundred 
yards along the bank of the stream. 

The river-bed was here expanded to a wide basin, 
in which the logs floated lazily down to the cata- 
ract below. Trees and underbrush, which usually 
stood on dry land, were half-submerged in the 
yellow water, and the current gurgled slowly about 
their trunks with muddy foam and bubbles. Now 
and then a heap of lumber would get wedged in 
between the jutting rocks above the waterfall, and 
then the current slackened, only to be suddenly ac- 
celerated, when the exertions of the men had again 
removed the obstruction. 

It was an exciting spectacle to see these daring 


THE BATTLE OF THE RAFTS 


19 


fellows leap from log to log, with birch -bark 
shoes on their feet. They would ride on a heap of 
lumber down to the very edge of the cataract, dex- 
terously jump off at the critical moment, and after 
half a dozen narrow escapes, reach the shore, only 
to repeat the dangerous experiment, as soon as the 
next opportunity offered itself. 

It was the example of these hardy and agile lum- 
bermen, trained from childhood to sport with dan- 
ger, which inspired Viggo and his followers with a 
desire to show their mettle. 

“ Sergeant Henning,” said the General to his 
ever-faithful shadow, “ take a squad of five men 
with you, and cut steering-poles for those for whom 
boat-hooks cannot be procured. You will be the 
last to leave shore. Report to me if any one fails to 
obey orders.” 

“ Shall be done. General,” Marcus responded, 
with a deferential military salute. 

“ The bows, you understand, will be slung by 
the straps across the backs of the men, while they 
steer and push with their poles.” 

“ Certainly, General,” said Marcus, with another 
salute. 

“ You may go.” 

“ All right, General,” answered Marcus, with a 
third salute. 

And now began the battle. The East-Siders, 
fearing that a stratagem was intended, when they 


20 


BOYHOOD IN NOR IV AY 


saw the enemy moving up the stream, made haste 
to follow their example, capturing on their way 
every stray log that came along. They sent inef- 
fectual showers of arrows into the water, while 
the brave General Viggo, striding two big logs 
which he had tied together with a piece of rope, 
and with a boat-hook in his hand, pushed proudly 
at the head of his army into the middle of the wide 
basin. 

Halvor Reitan was clever enough to see what 
it meant, and he was not going to allow the 
West-Siders to gain the heights above him, and 
attack him in the rear. He meant to prevent the 
enemy from landing, or, still better, he would 
meet him half-way, and drive him back to his own 
shore. 

The latter, though not the wiser course, was the 
plan which Halvor Reitan adopted. To have a 
tussle with the high-nosed Viggo in the middle of 
the basin, to dislodge him from his raft — that 
seemed to Halvor a delightful project. He knew 
that Viggo was a good swimmer, so he feared no 
dangerous consequences ; and even if he had, it 
would not have restrained him. He was so much 
stronger than Viggo, and here was his much-longed- 
for opportunity. 

With great despatch he made himself a raft of 
two logs, and seating himself astride them, with his 
legs in the water, put off from shore. He shouted 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 


21 


to his men to follow him, and they needed no urg- 
ing. Viggo was now near the middle of the basin, 
with twenty or thirty picked archers close behind 
him. They fired volley after volley of arrows 
against the enemy, and twice drove him back to 
the shore. 

But Halvor Reitan, shielding his face with a 
piece of bark which he had picked up, pushed for- 
ward in spite of their onslaught, though one arrow 
knocked off his red-peaked cap, and another scratched 
his ear. Now he was but a dozen feet from his foe. 
He cared little for his bow now ; the boat-hook was 
a far more effectual weapon. 

Viggo saw at a glance that he meant to pull his 
raft toward him, and, relying upon his greater 
strength, fling him into the water. His first plan 
would therefore be to fence with his own boat- 
hook, so as to keep his antagonist at a distance. 

When Halvor made the first lunge at the nose of 
his raft, he foiled the attempt with his own weapon, 
and managed dexterously to give the hostile raft a 
downward push, which increased the distance be- 
tween them. 

“ Take care. General ! said a respectful voice 
close to Viggo’s ear. “ There is a small log jam 
down below, which is getting bigger every moment. 
When it is got afloat, it will be dangerous out 
here.” 

“ What are you doing here, Sergeant ? ” asked 


22 


BOYHOOD m NORWAY 


the General, severely. “ Did I not tell you to be 
the last to leave the shore ? ” 

“ You did, General,” Marcus replied, meekly, 
“ and I obeyed. But I have pushed to the front so 
as to be near you.” 

“ I don’t need you. Sergeant,” Viggo responded, 
“ you may go to the rear.” 

The booming of the cataract nearly drowned his 
voice and Marcus pretended not to hear it. A 
huge lumber mass was piling itself up among the 
rocks jutting out of the rapids, and a dozen men 
hanging like flies on the logs, sprang up and down 
with axes in their hands. They cut one log here 
and another there ; shouted commands ; and fell 
into the river amid the derisive jeers of the specta- 
tors ; they scrambled out again and, dripping wet, 
set to work once more with a cheerful heart, to the 
mighty music of the cataract, whose thundering 
rhythm trembled and throbbed in the air. 

The boys who were steering their rafts against 
each other in the comparatively placid basin were 
too absorbed in their mimic battle to heed what was 
going on below. Halvor and Viggo were fighting 
desperately with their boat-hooks, the one attacking 
and the other defending himself with great dexter- 
ity. They scarcely perceived, in their excitement, 
that the current was dragging them slowly toward 
the cataract ; nor did they note the warning cries of 
the men and women on the banks. 


THE BATTLE THE RAFTS 23 

Viggo’s blood was hot, his temples throbbed, his 
eyes flashed. He would show this miserable clown 
who had dared to insult him, that the trained skill 
of a gentleman is worth more than the rude strength 
of a bully. With beautiful precision he foiled every 
attack ; struck Halvor’s boat-hook up and down, so 
that the water splashed about him, manoeuvring at 
the same time his own raft with admirable adroit- 
ness. 

Cheer upon cheer rent the air, after each of his 
successful sallies, and his comrades, selecting their 
antagonists from among the enemy, now pressed 
forward, all eager to bear their part in the fray. 

Splash ! splash ! splash ! one East-Sider was dis- 
mounted, got an involuntary bath, but scrambled up 
on his raft again. The next time it was a West- 
Sider who got a ducking, but seemed none the 
worse for it. There was a yelling and a cheering, 
now from one side and now from the other, which 
made everyone forget that something was going cn 
at that moment of greater importance than the 
mimic warfare of boys. 

All the interest of the contending parties was 
concentrated on the duel of their chieftains. It 
seemed now really that Halvor was getting the 
worst of it. He could not get close enough to 
use his brawny muscles ; and in precision of aim 
and adroitness of movement he was not Viggo’s 
match. 


24 


BOYHOOD IN NOB IV AY 


Again and again he thrust his long-handled boat- 
hook angrily against the bottom (for the flooded 
parts of the banks were very shallow), to push the 
raft forward, but every time Viggo managed to turn 
it sideward, and Halvor had to exert all his presence 
of mind to keep his seat. Wild with rage he sprang 
up on his slender raft and made a vicious lunge at 
his opponent, who warded the blow with such force 
that the handle of the boat-hook broke, and Hal- 
vor lost his balance and fell into the water. 

At this same instant a tremendous crash was 
heard from below, followed by a long rumble as of 
mighty artillery. A scream of horror went up from 
the banks, as the great lumber mass rolled down 
into the cataract, making a sudden suction which it 
seemed impossible that the unhappy boys could re- 
sist. 

The majority of both sides, seeing their danger, 
beat, by means of their boat-hooks, a hasty retreat, 
and as they were in shallow water were hauled 
ashore by the lumbermen, who sprang into the river 
to save them. 

When the clouds of spray had cleared away, only 
three figures were visible. Viggo, still astride of his 
raft, was fighting, not for his own life, but for that 
of his enemy, Halvor, who was struggling helplessly 
in the white rapids. Close behind his commander 
stood little Marcus on his raft, holding on, with 
one hand to the boat-hook which he had hewn, with 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 2 $ 

all his might, into Viggo’s raft, and with the other 
grasping the branch of a half-submerged tree. 

“ Save yourself. General ! ” he yelled, wildly. 
“ Let go there. I can’t hold on much longer.” 

But Viggo did not heed. He saw nothing but 
the pale, frightened face of his antagonist, who 
might lose his life. With a desperate effort he 
flung his boat-hook toward him and succeeded this 
time in laying hold of the leather girdle about his 
waist. One hundred feet below yawned the- foam- 
ing, weltering abyss, from which the white smoke 
ascended. If Marcus lost his grip, if the branch 
snapped no human power could save them ; they 
were all dead men. 

By this time the people on the shore had dis- 
covered that three lives were hanging on the brink 
of eternity. Twenty men had waded waist-deep 
into the current and had flung a stout rope to the 
noble little fellow who was risking his own life for 
his friend. 

“ Keep your hold, my brave lad ! ” they cried ; 
“hold on another minute ! ” 

“ Grab the rope !” screamed others. 

Marcus clinched his teeth, and his numb arms 
trembled, mist gathered in his eyes — his heart stood 
still. But with a clutch that seemed superhuman 
he held on. He had but one thought— Viggo, his 
chief ! Viggo, his idol ! Viggo, his general ! He 
must save him or die with him. One end of the 


26 


BOYHOOD JH NORWAY 


rope was hanging on the branch and was within 
easy reach ; but he did not venture to seize it, lest 
the wrench caused by his motion might detach his 
hold on Viggo’s raft. 

Viggo, who just now was pulling Halvor out of 
the water, saw in an instant that he had by adding 
his weight to the raft, increased the chance of both 
being carried to their death. With quick reso- 
lution he plunged the beak of his own boat- 
hook into Marcus’s raft, and shouted to Halvor 
to save himself. The latter, taking in the situa- 
tion at a glance, laid hold of the handle of the 
boat-hook and together they pulled up alongside 
of Marcus and leaped aboard his raft, whereupon 
Viggo’s raft drifted downward and vanished in a 
flash in the yellow torrent. 

At that very instant Marcus’s strength gave out ; 
he relaxed his grip on the branch, which slid out of 
his hand, and they would inevitably have darted 
over the brink of the cataract if Viggo had not, 
with great adroitness, snatched the rope from the 
branch of the half-submerged tree. 

A wild shout, half a cheer, half a cry of relief, 
went up from the banks, as the raft with the three 
lads was slowly hauled toward the shore by the 
lumberman who had thrown the rope. 

Halvor Reitan was the first to step ashore. But 
no joyous welcome greeted him from those whose 
sympathies had, a little while ago, been all on his 


THE BATTLE OF THE BAFTS 2 / 

side. He hung around uneasily for some minutes, 
feeling perhaps that he ought to say something to 
Viggo who had saved his life, but as he could not 
think of anything which did not seem foolish, he 
skulked away unnoticed toward the edge of the 
forest. 

But when Viggo stepped ashore, carrying the un- 
conscious Marcus in his arms, how the crowd 
rushed forward to gaze at him, to press his hands, 
to call down God’s blessing upon him ! He 
had never imagined that he was such a hero. It 
was Marcus, not he, to whom their ovation was 
due. But poor Marcus — it was well for him that 
he had fainted from over-exertion ; for otherwise 
he would have fainted from embarrassment at 
the honors which would have been showered upon 
him. 

The West-Siders, marching two abreast, with 
their bows slung across their shoulders, escorted 
their general home, cheering and shouting as they 
went. When they were half-way up the hillside, 
Marcus opened his eyes, and finding himself so 
close to. his beloved general, blushed crimson, scar- 
let, and purple, and all the other shades that an em- 
barrassed blush is capable of assuming. 

“ Please, General,” he stammered, “ don’t bother 
about me.” 

Viggo had thought of making a speech exalting 
the heroism of his faithful follower. But he saw 


28 


BOYHOOD IN' NORWAY 


at a glance that his praise would be more grateful to 
Marcus, if he received it in private. 

When, however, the boys gave him a parting 
cheer, in front of his father’s mansion, he forgot his 
resolution, leaped up on the steps, and lifting the 
blushing Marcus above his head, called out : 

“ Three cheers for the bravest boy in Norway ! ” 


BICEPS GRIMLUND^S CHRISTMAS VA- 
CATION 


1 . 

The great question which Albert Grimlund was 
debating was fraught with unpleasant possibil- 
ities. He could not go home for the Christmas 
vacation, for his father lived in Drontheim, which 
is so far away from Christiania that it was scarcely 
worth while making the journey for a mere two- 
weeks’ holiday. Then, on the other hand, he had 
an old great-aunt who lived but a few miles from 
the city. She had, from conscientious motives, he 
feared, sent him an invitation to pass Christmas 
with her. But Albert had a poor opinion of Aunt 
Elsbeth. He thought her a very tedious person. 
She had a dozen cats, talked of nothing but ser- 
mons and lessons, and asked him occasionally, with 
pleasant humor, whether he got many whippings at 
school. She failed to comprehend that a boy could 
not amuse himself forever by looking at the pict- 
ures in the old family Bible, holding yarn, and list- 
ening to oft-repeated stories, which he knew by 
heart, concerning the doings and sayings of his 


30 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


grandfather. Aunt Elsbeth, after a previous ex- 
perience with her nephew, had come to regard boys 
as rather a reprehensible kind of animal, who dif- 
fered in many of their ways from girls, and alto- 
gether to the boys’ disadvantage. 

Now, the prospect of being “ caged ” for two 
weeks with this estimable lady was, as I said, not 
at all pleasant to Albert. He was sixteen years 
old, loved out-door sports, and had no taste for 
cats. His chief pride was his muscle, and no boy 
ever made his acquaintance without being invited 
to feel the size and hardness of his biceps. This 
was a standing joke in the Latin school, and Albert 
was generally known among his companions as 
“ Biceps ” Grimlund. He was not very tall for his 
age, but broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with 
something in his glance, his gait, and his manners 
which showed that he had been born and bred near 
the sea. He cultivated a weather-beaten com- 
plexion, and was particularly proud when the skin 
“ peeled ” on his nose, which it usually did in the 
summer-time, during his visits to his home in the 
extreme north. Like most blond people, when sun- 
burnt, he was red, not brown ; and this became a 
source of great satisfaction when he learned that 
Lord Nelson had the same peculiarity. Albert’s 
favorite books were the sea romances of Captain 
Marryat, whose “ Peter Simple ” and “ Midship- 
man Easy” he held to be the noblest products of 


BICEPS GRIMLUND'S CHRISTMAS FA CAT/ OH 3 1 

human genius. It was a bitter disappointment to 
him that his father forbade his going to sea and 
was educating him to be a “ landlubber,” which he 
had been taught by his boy associates to regard as 
the most contemptible thing on earth. 

Two days before Christmas, Biceps Grimlund 
was sitting in his room, looking gloomily out of the 
window. He wished to postpone as long as possi- 
ble his departure for Aunt Elsbeth’s country-place, 
for he foresaw that both he and she were doomed 
to a surfeit of each other’s company during the 
coming fortnight. At last he heaved a deep sigh 
and languidly began to pack his trunk. He had 
just disposed the dear Marryat books on top of his 
starched shirts, when he heard rapid footsteps on 
the stairs, and the next moment the door burst 
open, and his classmate, Ralph Hoyer, rushed 
breathlessly into the room. 

“ Biceps,” he cried, “ look at this ! Here is a 
letter from my father, and he tells me to invite one 
of my classmates to come home with me for the 
vacation. Will you come ? Oh, we shall have 
grand times, I tell you ! No end of fun ! ” 

Albert, instead of answering, jumped up and 
danced a jig on the floor, upsetting two chairs and 
breaking the wash-pitcher, 

“Hurrah!” he cried, “I’m your man. Shake 
hands on it, Ralph I You have saved me from two 
weeks of cats and yarn and moping I Give us your 


32 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


paw ! I never was so glad to see anybody in all 
my life.” 

And to prove it, he seized Ralph by the shoul- 
ders, gave him a vigorous whirl and forced him to 
join in the dance. 

“Now, stop your nonsense,” Ralph protested, 
laughing ; “ if you have so much strength to waste, 
wait till we are at home in Solheim, and you’ll 
have a chance to use it profitably.^’ 

Albert flung himself down on his old rep-covered 
sofa. It seemed to have some internal disorder, for 
its springs rattled and a vague musical twang indi- 
cated that something or other had snapped. It 
had seen much maltreatment, that poor old piece 
of furniture, and bore visible marks of it. When, 
after various exhibitions of joy, their boisterous de- 
light had quieted down, both boys began to discuss 
their plans for the vacation. 

“ But I fear my groom may freeze, down there 
in the street,” Ralph ejaculated, cutting short the 
discussion ; “ it is bitter cold, and he can’t leave the 
horses. Hurry up, now, old man, and I’ll help you 
pack.” 

It did not take them long to complete the pack- 
ing. Albert sent a telegram to his father, asking 
permission to accept Ralph’s invitation ; but, know- 
ing well that the reply would be favorable, did not 
think it necessary to wait for it. With the assist- 
ance of his friend he now wrapped himself in two 


BICEPS GRIMLUND'S CHRISTMAS VACATION 33 

overcoats, pulled a pair of thick woollen stockings 
over the outside of his boots and a pair of fur-lined 
top-boots outside of these, girded himself with three 
long scarfs, and pulled his brown otter-skin cap 
down over his ears. He was nearly as broad as he 
was long, when he had completed these operations, 
and descended into the street where the big double- 
sleigh (made in the shape of a huge white swan) 
was awaiting them. They now called at Ralph’s 
lodgings, whence he presently emerged in a similar 
Esquimau costume, wearing a wolf-skin coat which 
left nothing visible except the tip of his nose and 
the steam of his breath. Then they started off 
merrily with jingling bells, and waved a farewell 
toward many a window, wherein were friends and 
acquaintances. They felt in so jolly a mood, that 
they could not help shouting their joy in the face 
of all the world, and crowing over all poor wretches 
who were left to spend the holidays in the city. 

II. 

SOLHEIM was about twenty miles from the city, 
and it was nine o’clock in the evening when 
the boys arrived there. The moon was shining 
brightly, and the Milky Way, with its myriad stars, 
looked like a luminous mist across the vault of the 
sky. The aurora borealis swept down from the 
north with white and pink radiations which flushed 
3 


34 


B O YHO OD IN' NOR WA Y 


the dark blue sky for an instant, and vanished. 
The earth was white, as far as the eye could reach 
— splendidly, dazzlingly white. And out of the 
white radiance rose the great dark pile of masonry 
called Solheim, with its tall chimneys and dormer- 
windows and old-fashioned gables. Round about 
stood the tall leafless maples and chestnut-trees, 
sparkling with frost and stretching their gaunt arms 
against the heavens. The two horses, when they 
swung up before the great front-door, were so white 
with hoar-frost that they looked shaggy like goats, 
and no one could tell what was their original color. 
Their breath was blown in two vapory columns from 
their nostrils and drifted about their heads like 
steam about a locomotive. 

The sleigh bells had announced the arrival of the 
guests, and a great shout of welcome was heard from 
the hall of the house, which seemed alive with grown- 
up people and children. Ralph jumped out of the 
sleigh, embraced at random half a dozen people, one 
of whom was his mother, kissed right and left, pro- 
testing laughingly against being smothered in affec- 
tion, and finally managed to introduce his friend, 
who for the moment was feeling a trifle lonely. 

“ Here, father,” he cried. “ Biceps, this is my 
father ; and, father, this is my Biceps ’* 

“ What stuff you are talking, boy,” his father 
exclaimed. “How can this young fellow be your 
biceps ” 


BICEPS GRIMLUND^S CHRISTMAS VAC ATI OH 35 

“ Well, how can a man keep his senses in such 
confusion ? ” said the son of the house. “ This is 
my friend and classmate, Albert Grimlund, alias 
Biceps Grimlund, and the strongest man in the 
whole school. Just feel his biceps, mother, and 
you’ll see.” 

“ No, I thank you. I’ll take your word for it,” 
replied Mrs. Hoyer. “ As I intend to treat him 
as a frfend of my son should be treated, I hope he 
will not feel inclined to give me any proof of his 
muscularity.” 

When, with the aid of the younger children, the 
travellers had divested themselves of their various 
wraps and overcoats, they were ushered into the 
old-fashioned sitting-room. In one corner roared 
an enormous, many-storied, iron stove. It had a 
picture in relief, on one side, of Diana the Huntress^ 
with her nymphs and baying hounds. In the mid- 
dle of the room stood a big table, and in the 
middle of the table a big lamp, about which the 
entire family soon gathered. It was so cosey and 
homelike that Albert, before he had been half an 
hour in the room, felt gratefully the atmosphere of 
mutual affection which pervaded the house. It 
amused him particularly to watch the little girls, of 
whom there were six, and to observe their profound 
admiration for their big brother. Every now and 
then one of them, sidling up to him while he sat 
talking, would cautiously touch his ear or a curl of 


36 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


his hair; and if he deigned to take any notice of 
her, offering her, perhaps, a perfunctory kiss, her 
pride and pleasure were charming to witness. 

Presently the signal was given that supper was 
ready, and various savory odors, which escaped, 
whenever a door was opened, served to arouse the 
anticipations of the boys to the highest pitch. Now, 
if I did not have so much else to tell you, I should 
stop here and describe that supper. There were 
twenty-two people who sat down to it ; but that 
was nothing unusual at Solheim, for it was a hos- 
pitable house, where every wayfarer was welcome, 
either to the table in the servants’ hall or to the 
master’s table in the dining-room. 

III. 

At the stroke of ten all the family arose, and each 
in turn kissed the father and mother good-night ; 
whereupon Mr. Hoyer took the great lamp from the 
table and mounted the stairs, followed by his pack 
of noisy boys and girls. Albert and Ralph found 
themselves, with four smaller Hoyers, in an enor- 
mous low-ceiled room with many windows. In 
three corners stood huge canopied bedsteads, with 
flowered - chintz curtains and mountainous eider- 
down coverings which swelled up toward the ceiling. 
In the middle of the wall, opposite the windows, a 
big iron stove, like the one in the sitting-room (only 


BICEPS GRIMLUND’S CHRISTMAS. VACATION 37 

that it was adorned with a bunch of flowers, peaches, 
and grapes, and not with Diana and her nymphs), 
was roaring merrily, and sending a long red sheen 
from its draught-hole across the floor. 

Around the big warm stove the boys gathered 
(for it was positively Siberian in the region of the 
windows), and while undressing played various 
pranks upon each other, which created much merri- 
ment. But the most laughter was provoked at the 
expense of Finn Hoyer, a boy of fourteen, whose 
bare back his brother insisted upon exhibiting to his 
guest ; for it was decorated with a fac-simile of the 
picture on the stove, showing roses and luscious 
peaches and grapes in red relief. Three years be- 
fore, on Christmas Eve, the boys had stood about 
the red-hot stove, undressing for their bath, and 
Finn, who was naked, had, in the general scrim- 
mage to get first into the bath-tub, been pushed 
against the glowing iron, the ornamentation of 
which had been beautifully burned upon his back. 
He had to be wrapped in oil and cotton after that 
adventure, and he recovered in due time, but never 
quite relished the distinction he had acquired by 
his pictorial skin. 

It was long before Albert fell asleep ; for the cold 
kept up a continual fusillade, as of musketry, during 
the entire night. The woodwork of the walls 
snapped and cracked with loud reports ; and a little 
after midnight a servant came in and stuffed the 


38 


BOYHOOD IN NOR IV AY 


stove full of birch -wood, until it roared like an 
angry lion. This roar finally lulled Albert to sleep, 
in spite of the startling noises about him. 

The next morning the boys were aroused at 
seven o’clock by a servant, who brought a tray with 
the most fragrant coffee and hot rolls. It was in 
honor of the guest that, in accordance with Norse 
custom, this early meal was served ; and all the 
boys, carrying pillows and blankets, gathered on 
Albert’s and Ralph’s bed and feasted right royally. 
So it seemed to them, at least ; for any break in the 
ordinary routine, be it ever so slight, is an event to 
the young. Then they had a pillow-fight, thawed 
at the stove the water in the pitchers (for it was 
frozen hard), and arrayed themselves to descend 
and meet the family at the nine o’clock breakfast. 
When this repast was at an end, the question arose 
how they were to entertain their guest, and various 
plans were proposed. But to all Ralph’s proposi- 
tions his mother interposed the objection that it 
was too cold. 

“ Mother is right,” said Mr. Hoyer ; “ it is so cold 
that ‘ the chips jump on the hill-side.’ You’ll have 
to be content with indoor sports to-day.” 

“ But, father, it is not more than twenty degrees 
below zero,” the boy demurred. “I am sure we 
can stand that, if we keep in motion. I have been 
out at thirty without losing either ears or nose.” 

He went to the window to observe the thermom- 


BICEPS GRIMLUND^S CHRISTMAS VACATION 39 

eter ; but the dim daylight scarcely penetrated the 
fantastic frost-crystals, which, like a splendid exotic 
flora, covered the panes. Only at the upper corner, 
where the ice had commenced to thaw, a few timid 
sunbeams were peeping in, making the lamp upon 
the table seem pale and sickly. Whenever the door 
to the hall was opened a white cloud of vapor rolled 
in ; and every one made haste to shut the door, in 
order to save the precious heat. The boys, being 
doomed to remain indoors, walked about restlessly, 
felt each other’s muscle, punched each other, and 
sometimes, for want of better employment, teased 
the little girls. Mr. Hoyer, seeing how miserable 
they were, finally took pity on them, and, after 
having thawed out a window-pane sufficiently to 
see the thermometer outside, gave his consent to a 
little expedition on skees * down to the river. 

And now, boys, you ought to have seen them ! 
Now there was life in them ! You would scarcely 
have dreamed that they were the same creatures 
who, a moment ago, looked so listless and misera- 
ble. What rollicking laughter and fun, while they 
bundled one another in scarfs, cardigan-jackets, fur- 
lined top-boots, and overcoats ! 

“You had better take your guns along, boys,” 
said the father, as they stormed out through the 
front door ; “ you might strike a couple of ptarmigan, 
or a mountain-cock, over on the west side.” 

* Norwegian sno^f-shoes. 


40 


B O YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 


“ I am going to take your rifle, if you’ll let me,” 
Ralph exclaimed. “ I have a fancy we might strike 
bigger game than mountain-cock. I shouldn’t ob- 
ject to a wolf or two.” 

You are welcome to the rifle,” said his father; 
“ but I doubt whether you’ll find wolves on the ice 
so early in the day.” 

Mr. Hoyer took the rifle from its case, examined 
it carefully, and handed it to Ralph. Albert, who 
was a less experienced hunter than Ralph, preferred 
a fowling-piece to the rifle ; especially as he had no 
expectation of shooting anything but ptarmigan. 
Powder-horns, cartridges, and shot were provided ; 
and quite proudly the two friends started off on 
their skees, gliding over the hard crust of the snow, 
which, as the sun rose higher, was oversown with 
thousands of glittering gems. The boys looked like 
Esquimaux, with their heads bundled up in scarfs, 
and nothing visible except their eyes and a few 
hoary locks of hair which the frost had silvered. 

IV. 

“What was that ?” cried Albert, startled by a 
sharp report which reverberated from the mountains. 
They had penetrated the forest on the west side, and 
ranged over the ice for an hour, in a vain search for 
wolves. 

“ Hush,” said Ralph, excitedly ; and after a mo- 


BICEPS GRIMLUND'S CHRISTMAS VACATION 41 

ment of intent listening he added, “ I’ll be drawn 
and quartered if it isn’t poachers ! ” 

“ How do you know ?” 

“ These woods belong to father, and no one else 
has any right to hunt in them. He doesn’t mind if 
a poor man kills a hare or two, or a brace of ptarmi- 
gan ; but these chaps are after elk ; and if the old 
gentleman gets on the scent of elk-hunters, he has 
no more mercy than Beelzebub.” 

“ How can you know that they are after elk ? ” 

“ No man is likely to go to the woods for small 
game on a day like this. They think the cold pro- 
tects them from pursuit and capture.” 

“ What are you going to do about it ? ” 

“ I am going to play a trick on them. You know 
that the sheriff, whose duty it is to be on the look- 
out for elk-poachers, would scarcely send out a posse 
when the cold is so intense. Elk, you know, are 
becoming very scarce, and the law protects them. 
No man is allowed to shoot more than one elk a 
year, and that one on his own property. Now, 
you and I will play deputy-sheriffs, and have those 
poachers securely in the lock-up before night.” 

“ But suppose they fight ? ” 

“ Then we’ll fight back.” 

Ralph was so aglow with joyous excitement at 
the thought of this adventure, that Albert had not 
the heart to throw cold water on his enthusiasm. 
Moreover, he was afraid of being thought cowardly 


42 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


by his friend if he offered objections. The recol- 
lection of Midshipman Easy and his daring pranks 
flashed through his brain, and he felt an instant 
desire to rival the exploits of his favorite hero. 
If only the enterprise had been on the sea he would 
have been twice as happy, for the land always 
seemed to him a prosy and inconvenient place for 
the exhibition of heroism. 

“ But, Ralph,” he exclaimed, now more than 
ready to bear his. part in the expedition, “ 1 have 
only shot in my gun. You can’t shoot men with 
bird-shot.” 

“ Shoot men ! Are you crazy ? Why, I don’t 
intend to shoot anybody. I only wish to capture 
them. My rifle is a breech-loader and has six car- 
tridges. Besides, it has twice the range of theirs 
(for there isn’t another such rifle in all Odalen), 
and by firing one shot over their heads I can bring 
them to terms, don’t you see ? ” 

Albert, to be frank, did not see it exactly ; but he 
thought it best to suppress his doubts. He scented 
danger in the air, and his blood bounded through 
his veins. 

“ How do you expect to track them ? ” he asked, 
breathlessly. 

“ Skee-tracks in the snow can be seen by a bat, 
born blind,” answered Ralph, recklessly. 

They were now climbing up the wooded slope,on 
the western side of the river. The crust of the 


BICEPS GRIMLUND'S CHRISTMAS VACATION 43 

frozen snow was strong enough to bear them ; and 
as it was not glazed, but covered with an inch of 
hoar-frost, it retained the imprint of their feet with 
distinctness. They were obliged to carry their 
skees, on account both of the steepness of the slope 
and the density of the underbrush. Roads and 
paths were invisible under the white pall of the 
snow, and only the facility with which they could 
retrace their steps saved them from the fear of go- 
ing astray. Through the vast forest a deathlike 
silence reigned ; and this silence was not made up 
of an infinity of tiny sounds, like the silence of a 
summer day when the crickets whirr in the tree- 
tops and the bees drone in the clover-blossoms. 
No ; this silence was dead, chilling, terrible. The 
huge pine-trees now and then dropped a load of 
snow on the heads of the bold intruders, and it fell 
with a thud, followed by a noiseless, glittering driz- 
zle. As far as their eyes could reach, the monoto- 
nous colonnade of brown tree-trunks, rising out of 
the white waste, extended in all directions. It re- 
minded them of the enchanted forest in “ Undine,” 
through which a man might ride forever without 
finding the end. It was a great relief when, from 
time to time, they met a squirrel out foraging for 
pine-cones or picking up a scanty living among the 
husks of last year’s hazel-nuts. He was lively in 
spite of the weather, and the faint noises of his 
small activities fell gratefully upon ears already ap- 


44 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


palled by the awful silence. Occasionally they scared 
up a brace of grouse that seemed half benumbed, 
and hopped about in a melancholy manner under 
the pines, or a magpie, drawing in its head and ruf- 
fling up its feathers against the cold, until it looked 
frowsy and disreputable. 

“ Biceps,” whispered Ralph, who had suddenly 
discovered something interesting in the snow, “ do 
you see that ? ” 

“ Je-rusalem ! ” ejaculated Albert, with thought- 
less delight, “ it is a hoof-track ! ” 

‘‘ Hold your tongue, you blockhead,” warned his 
friend, too excited to be polite, “ or you’ll spoil the 
whole business ! ” 

“ But you asked me,” protested Albert, in a 
huff. 

“ But I didn’t shout, did I ? ” 

Again the report of a shot tore a great rent in the 
wintry stillness and rang out with sharp reverbera- 
tions. 

“ We’ve got them,” said Ralph, examining the 
lock of his rifle. “ That shot settles them.” 

“ If we don’t look out, they may get us instead,” 
grumbled Albert, who was still offended. 

Ralph stood peering into the underbrush, his 
eyes as wild as those of an Indian, his nostrils di- 
lated, and all his senses intensely awake. His com- 
panion, who was wholly unskilled in woodcraft, 
could see no cause for his agitation, and feared that 


BICEPS GRIMLUND'S CHRISTMAS VACATION 45 

he was yet angry. He did not detect the evidences 
of large game in the immediate neighborhood. He 
did not see, by the bend of the broken twigs and 
the small tufts of hair on the brier-bush, that an elk 
had pushed through that very copse within a few 
minutes; nor did he sniff the gamy odor with which 
the large beast had charged the ain In obedience 
to his friend’s gesture, he flung himself down on 
hands and knees and cautiously crept after him 
through the thicket. He now saw without diffi- 
culty a place where the elk had broken through the 
snow crust, and he could also detect a certain aim- 
less bewilderment in the tracks, owing, no doubt, to 
the shot and the animal’s perception of danger on 
two sides. Scarcely had he crawled twenty feet 
when he was startled by a noise of breaking branches, 
and before he had time to cock his gun, he saw an 
enormous bull-elk tearing through the underbrush, 
blowing two columns of steam from his nostrils, 
and steering straight toward them. At the same 
instant Ralph’s rifle blazed away, and the splendid 
beast, rearing on its hind legs, gave a wild snort, 
plunged forward and rolled on its side in the snow. 
Quick as a flash the young hunter had drawn his 
knife, and, in accordance with the laws of the 
chase, had driven it into the breast of the animal. 
But the glance from the dying eyes— that glance, of 
which every elk-hunter can tell a moving tale — 
pierced the boy to the very heart ! It was such a 


46 


BOYHOOD IN’ NOR IV AY 


touching, appealing, imploring glance, so soft and 
gentle and unresentful. 

“ Why did you harm me,” it seemed to say, 
“ who never harmed any living thing — who claimed 
only the right to live my frugal life in the forest, 
digging up the frozen mosses under the snow, which 
no mortal creature except myself can eat ? ” 

The sanguinary instinct — the fever for killing, 
which every boy inherits from savage ancestors — 
had left Ralph, before he had pulled the knife from 
the bleeding wound. A miserable feeling of guilt 
stole over him. He never had shot an elk before; 
and his father, who was anxious to preserve the 
noble beasts from destruction, had not availed him- 
self of his right to kill one for many years. Ralph 
had, indeed, many a time hunted rabbits, hares, 
mountain-cock, and capercailzie. But they had 
never destroyed his pleasure by arousing pity for 
their deaths ; and he had always regarded himself 
as being proof against sentimental emotions. 

‘‘ Look here. Biceps,” he said, flinging the knife 
into the snow, “ I wish 1 hadn’t killed that bull.” 

“ I thought we were hunting for poachers,” an- 
swered Albert, dubiously ; “ and now we have been 
poaching ourselves.” 

“By Jiminy! So we have; and I never once 
thought of it,” cried the valiant hunter. I am 
afraid we are off my father’s preserves too. It is 
well the deputy-sheriffs are not abroad, or we might 


BICEPS GRIMLUND^S CHRISTMAS FACATlOAr 4 ; 

find ourselves decorated with iron bracelets before 
night.” 

“ But what did you do it for ? ” 

“ Well, I can’t tell. It’s in the blood, I fancy. 
The moment I saw the track and caught the wild 
smell, I forgot all about the poachers, and started 
on the scent like a hound.” 

The two boys stood for some minutes looking at 
the dead animal, not with savage exultation, but 
with a dim regret. The blood which was gushing 
from the wound in the breast froze in a solid lump 
the very moment it touched the snow, although the 
cold had greatly moderated since the morning. 

“ I suppose we’ll have to skin the fellow,” re- 
marked Ralph, lugubriously; “it won’t do to leave 
that fine carcass for the wolves to celebrate Christ- 
mas with.” 

“ All right,” Albert answered, “ I am not much of 
a hand at skinning, but I’ll do the best I can.” 

They fell to work rather reluctantly at the un- 
wonted task, but had not proceeded far when they 
perceived that they had a full day’s job before 
them. 

“ I’ve no talent for the butcher’s trade,” Ralph 
exclaimed in disgust, dropping his knife into the 
snow. “There’s no help for it. Biceps, we’ll have 
to bury the carcass, pile some logs on the top of it, 
and send a horse to drag it home to-morrow. If it 
were not Christmas Eve to-night we might take a 


48 


B O Y HO OD IN’ NOR W A Y 


couple of men along and shoot a dozen wolves or 
more. For there is sure to be pandemonium here 
before long, and a concert in G-flat that’ll curdle 
the marrow of your bones with horror.” 

“ Thanks,” replied the admirer of Midshipman 
Easy, striking a reckless naval attitude. “ The mar- 
row of my bones is not so easily curdled. I’ve 
been on a whaling voyage, which is more than you 
have.” 

Ralph was about to vindicate his dignity by re- 
ferring to his own valiant exploits, when suddenly 
his keen eyes detected a slight motion in the under- 
brush on the slope below. 

“ Biceps,” he said, with forced composure, “ those 
poachers are tracking us.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked Albert, in vague 
alarm. 

“ Do you see the top of that young birch wav- 
ing?” 

“ Well, what of that I ” 

“ Wait and see. It’s no good trying to escape. 
They can easily overtake us. The snow is the worst 
tell-tale under the sun.” 

‘‘ But why should we wish to escape ? I thought 
we were going to catch them.” 

“ So we were ; but that was before we turned 
poachers ourselves. Now those fellows will turn 
the tables on us — take us to the sheriff and collect 
half the fine, which is fifty dollars, as informers.” 


BICEPS GRIMLUND^S CHRISTMAS VACATION 49 

“ Je-rusalem !” cried Biceps, “ isn’t it a beautiful 
scrape weVe gotten into ? ” 

“ Rather,” responded his friend, coolly. 

“ But why meekly allow ourselves to be cap- 
tured ? Why not defend ourselves ? ” 

“ My dear Biceps, you don’t know what you are 
talking about. Those fellows don’t mind putting a 
bullet into you, if you run. Now, I’d rather pay 
fifty dollars any day, than shoot a man even in 
self-defence.” 

“But they have killed elk too. We heard them 
shoot twice. Suppose we play the same game on 
them that they intend to play on us. We can play 
informers too, then we’ll at least be quits.” 

“ Biceps, you are a brick ! That’s a capital idea ! 
Then let us start for the sheriff’s ; and if we get 
there first, we’ll inform both on ourselves and on 
them. That’ll cancel the fine. Quick, now ! ” 

No persuasions were needed to make Albert be- 
stir himself. He leaped toward his skees, and fol- 
lowing his friend, who was a few rods ahead of him, 
started down the slope in a zigzag line, cautiously 
steering his way among the tree trunks. The boys 
had taken their departure none too soon ; for they 
were scarcely five hundred yards down the declivity, 
when they heard behind them loud exclamations 
and oaths. Evidently the poachers had stopped to 
roll some logs (which were lying close by) over the 
carcass, probably meaning to appropriate it ; and 
4 


50 


B O YHO OD IN NOR W A Y 


this gave the boys an advantage, of which they were 
in great need. After a few moments they espied an 
open clearing which sloped steeply down toward the 
river. Toward this Ralph had been directing his 
course; for although it was a venturesome under- 
taking to slide down so steep and rugged a hill, he 
was determined rather to break his neck than lower 
his pride, and become the laughing-stock of the 
parish. 

One more tack through alder copse and juniper 
jungle — hard indeed, and terribly vexatious — and 
he saw with delight the great open slope, covered 
with an unbroken surface of glittering snow. The 
sun (which at midwinter is but a few hours above 
the horizon) had set; and the stars were flashing 
forth with dazzling brilliancy. Ralph stopped, as 
he reached the clearing, to give Biceps an oppor- 
tunity to overtake him ; for Biceps, like all marine 
animals, moved with less dexterity on the dry land. 

“ Ralph,” he whispered breathlessly, as he pushed 
himself up to his companion with a vigorous thrust 
of his skee-staff, “ there are two awful chaps close 
behind us. I distinctly heard them speak.” 

“ Fiddlesticks,” said Ralph ; now let us see 
what you are made of ! Don’t take my track, or 
you may impale me like a roast pig on a spit. 
Now, ready ! — one, two, three ! ” 

“ Hold on there, or I shoot,” yelled a hoarse voice 
from out of the underbrush ; but it was too late ; for 


BICEPS GRIMLUND'S CHRISTMAS VACATION 5 1 

at the same instant the two boys slid out over the 
steep slope, and, wrapped in a whirl of loose snow, 
were scudding at a dizzying speed down the precip- 
itous hill-side. Thump, thump, thump, they went, 
where hidden wood-piles or fences obstructed their 
path, and out they shot into space, but each time 
came down firmly on their feet, and dashed ahead 
with undiminished ardor. Their calves ached, the 
cold air whistled in their ears, and their eyelids 
became stiff and their sight half obscured with the 
hoar-frost that fringed their lashes. But onward 
they sped, keeping their balance with wonderful 
skill, until they reached the gentler slope which 
formed the banks of the great river. Then for the 
first time Ralph had an opportunity to look behind 
him, and he saw two moving whirls of snow dart- 
ing downward, not far from his own track. His 
heart beat in his throat ; for those fellows had both 
endurance and skill, and he feared that he was no 
match for them. But suddenly — he could have 
yelled with delight — the foremost figure leaped into 
the air, turned a tremendous somersault, and, com- 
ing down on his head, broke through the crust of 
the snow and vanished, while his skees started on 
an independent journey down the hill-side. He had 
struck an exposed fence-rail, which, abruptly check- 
ing his speed, had sent him flying like a rocket. 

The other poacher had barely time to change his 
course, so as to avoid the snag; but he was unable 


52 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


to stop and render assistance to his fallen comrade. 
The boys, just as they were shooting out upon the 
ice, saw by his motions that he was hesitating 
whether or not he should give up the chase. He 
used his staff as a brake for a few moments, so as to 
retard his speed ; but discovering, perhaps, by the 
brightening starlight, that his adversaries were not 
full-grown men, he took courage, started forward 
again, and tried to make up for the time he had lost. 
If he could but reach the sheriff’s house before the 
boys did, he could have them arrested and collect the 
informer’s fee, instead of being himself arrested and 
fined as a poacher. It was a prize worth racing for ! 
And, moreover, there were two elks, worth twenty- 
five dollars apiece, buried in the snow under logs. 
These also would belong to the victor ! The poacher 
dashed ahead, straining every nerve, and reached 
safely the foot of the steep declivity. The boys 
were now but a few hundred yards ahead of him. 

“ Hold on there,” he yelled again, “ or I shoot ! ” 

He was not within range, but he thought he 
could frighten the youngsters into abandoning the 
race. The sheriff’s house was but a short distance 
up the river. Its tall, black chimneys could be seen 
looming up against the starlit sky. There was no 
slope now to accelerate their speed. They had to 
peg away for dear life, pushing themselves forward 
with their skee-staves, laboring like plough-horses, 
panting, snorting, perspiring. Ralph turned his 


BICEPS GRIMLUND^S CHRISTMAS VACATION 53 

head once more. The poacher was gaining upon 
them ; there could be do doubt of it. He was 
within the range of Ralph’s rifle ; and a sturdy fel- 
low he was, who seemed good for a couple of miles 
yet. Should Ralph send a bullet over his head to 
frighten him ? No ; that might give the poacher 
an excuse for sending back a bullet with a less 
innocent purpose. Poor Biceps, he was panting 
and puffing in his heavy wraps like a steamboat ! 
He did not once open his mouth to speak ; but, 
exerting his vaunted muscle to the utmost, kept 
abreast of his friend, and sometimes pushed a pace 
or two ahead of him. But it cost him a mighty ef- 
fort I And yet the poacher was gaining upon him ! 
They could see the long broadside of windows in 
the sheriff’s mansion, ablaze with Christmas candles. 
They came nearer and nearer ! The church-bells 
up on the bend were ringing in the festival. Five 
minutes more and they would be at their goal. 
Five minutes more! Surely they had strength 
enough left for that small space of time. So had the 
poacher, probably I The question was, which had 
the most. Then, with a short, sharp resonance, fol- 
lowed by a long reverberation, a shot rang out and a 
bullet whizzed past Ralph’s ear. It was the poacher 
who had broken the peace. Ralph, his blood boil- 
ing with wrath, came to a sudden stop, flung his 
rifle to his cheek and cried, “ Drop that gun I ” 

The poacher, bearing down with all his might on 


54 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


the skee-staff, checked his speed. In the mean^ 
while Albert hurried on, seeing that the issue of 
the race depended upon him. 

“ Don’t force me to hurt ye ! ” shouted the 
poacher, threateningly, to Ralph, taking aim once 
more. 

“ You can’t,” Ralph shouted back. “ You haven’t 
another shot.” 

At that instant sounds of sleigh-bells and voices 
were heard, and half a dozen people, startled by the 
shot, were seen rushing out from the sheriff’s man- 
sion. Among them was Mr. Bjornerud himself, 
with one of his deputies. 

“ In the name of the law, I command you to 
cease,” he cried, when he saw down the two figures 
in menacing attitudes. But before he could say 
another word, some one fell prostrate in the road 
before him, gasping : 

“We have shot an elk ; so has that man down on 
the ice. We give ourselves up.” 

Mr. Bjornerud, making no answer, leaped over 
the prostrate figure, and, followed by the deputy, 
dashed down upon the ice. 

“ In the name of the law ! ” he shouted again, 
and both rifles were reluctantly lowered. 

“ I have shot an elk,” cried Ralph, eagerly, “ and 
this man is a poacher, we heard him shoot.” 

“ I have killed an elk,” screamed the poacher, in 
the same moment, “ and so has this fellow.” 


BICEPS GRIM LUND* S CHRISTMAS VACATION 55 

The sheriff was too astonished to speak. Never 
before, in his experience, had poachers raced for 
dear life to give themselves into custody. He 
feared that they were making sport of him ; in that 
case, however, he resolved to make them suffer for 
their audacity. 

“You are my prisoners,” he said, after a mo- 
ment’s hesitation. “ Take them to the lock-up, Ol- 
sen, and handcuff them securely,” he added, turn- 
ing to his deputy. 

There were now a dozen men — most of them 
guests and attendants of the sheriff’s household — 
standing in a ring about Ralph and the poacher. 
Albert, too, had scrambled to his feet and had 
joined his comrade. 

“ Will you permit me, Mr. Sheriff,” said Ralph, 
making the officer his politest bow, “ to send a mes- 
sage to my father, who is probably anxious about 
us?” 

“And who is your father, young man?” asked 
the sheriff, not unkindly ; “ I should think you 
were doing him an ill-turn in taking to poaching 
at your early age.” 

“ My father is Mr. Hoyer, of Solheim,” said the 
boy, not without some pride in the announcement. 

“ What — you rascal, you ! Are you trying to 
play pranks on an old man ? ” cried the officer of 
the law, grasping Ralph cordially by the hand. 
“You’ve grown to be quite a man, since I saw you 


56 


BOYHOOD IN' NORWAY 


last. Pardon me for not recognizing the son of an 
old neighbor.” 

“ Allow me to introduce to you my friend, Mr. 
Biceps — I mean, Mr. Albert Grimlund.” 

“ Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Biceps 
Albert ; and now you must both come and eat the 
Christmas porridge with us. I’ll send a messenger 
to Mr. Hoyer without delay.” 

The sheriff, in a jolly mood, and happy to have 
added to the number of his Christmas guests, took 
each of the two young men by the arm, as if he 
were going to arrest them, and conducted them 
through the spacious front hall into a large cosey 
room, where, having divested themselves of their 
wraps, they told the story of their adventure. 

“ But, my dear sir,” Mr. Bjornerud exclaimed, 
“ I don’t see how you managed to go beyond your 
father’s preserves. You know he bought of me the 
whole forest tract, adjoining his own on the south, 
about three months ago. So you were perfectly 
within your rights ; for your father hasn’t killed an 
elk on his land for three years.” 

“ If that is the case, Mr. Sheriff,” said Ralph, “ I 
must beg of you to release the poor fellow who 
chased us. I don’t wish any informer’s fee, nor 
have I any desire to get him into trouble.” 

“ I am sorry to say I can’t accommodate you,” 
Bjornerud replied. “This man is a notorious 
poacher and trespasser, whom my deputies have 


BICEPS GRIMLUND^S CHRISTMAS VACATION S7 

long been tracking in vain. Now that I have him, 
I shall keep him. There’s no elk safe in Odalen 
so long as that rascal is at large.” 

That may be ; but I shall then turn my in- 
former’s fee over to him, which will reduce his fine 
from fifty dollars to twenty-five dollars.” 

“ To encourage him to continue poaching ? ” 

“ Well, I confess I have a little more sympathy 
with poachers, since we came so near being poachers 
ourselves. It was only an accident that saved us ! ’* 


THE NIXY’S STRAIN 


Little Nils had an idea that he wanted to be 
something great in the world, but he did not quite 
know how to set about it. He had always been 
told that, having been born on a Sunday, he was a 
luck-child, and that good fortune would attend him 
on that account in whatever he undertook. 

He had never, so far, noticed anything peculiar 
about himself, though, to be sure, his small enter- 
prises did not usually come to grief, his snares were 
seldom empty, and his tiny stamping-mill, which he 
and his friend Thorstein had worked at so faith- 
fully, was now making a merry noise over in the 
brook in the Westmo Glen, so that you could hear 
it a hundred yards away. 

The reason of this, his mother told him, accord- 
ing to the superstition of her people, was that the 
Nixy and the Hulder * and the gnomes favored 
him because he was a Sunday child. What was 
more, she assured him, that he would see them some 
day, and then, if he conducted himself cleverly, so 

* The genius of cattle, represented as a beautiful maiden disfig- 
ured by a heifer’s tail, which she is always trying to hide, though 
often unsuccessfully. 


THE NIXY'S STRAIN 59 

as to win their favor, he would, by their aid, rise 
high in the world, and make his fortune. 

Now this was exactly what Nils wanted, and 
therefore he was not a little anxious to catch a 
glimpse of the mysterious creatures who had so 
whimsical a reason for taking an interest in him. 
Many and many a time he sat at the waterfall where 
the Nixy was said to play the harp every midsum- 
mer night, but although he sometimes imagined 
that he heard a vague melody trembling through 
the rush and roar of the water, and saw glimpses 
of white limbs flashing through the current, yet 
never did he get a good look at the Nixy. 

Though he roamed through the woods early and 
late, setting snares for birds and rabbits, and was 
ever on the alert for a sight of the Hulder’s golden 
hair and scarlet bodice, the tricksy sprite persisted 
in eluding him. 

He thought sometimes that he heard a faint, girl- 
ish giggle, full of teasing provocation and suppressed 
glee, among the underbrush, and once he imagined 
that he saw a gleam of scarlet and gold vanish in a 
dense alder copse. 

But very little good did that do him, when he 
could not fix the vision, talk with it face to face, 
and extort the fulfilment of the three regulation 
wishes. 

I am probably not good enough,” thought Nils. 

I know I am a selfish fellow, and cruel, too, some- 


60 BO YHO OD JN NOR WA Y 

times, to birds and beasts. I suppose she won’t 
have anything to do with me, as long as she isn’t 
satisfied with my behavior.” 

Then he tried hard to be kind and considerate ; 
smiled at his little sister when she pulled his hair, 
patted Sultan, the dog, instead of kicking him, 
when he was in his way, and never complained or 
sulked when he was sent on errands late at night or 
in bad weather. 

But, strange to say, though the Nixy’s mysteri- 
ous melody still sounded vaguely through the wa- 
ter’s roar, and the Hulder seemed to titter behind 
the tree-trunks and vanish in the underbrush, a 
real, unmistakable view was never vouchsafed to 
Nils, and the three wishes which were to make his 
fortune he had no chance of propounding. 

He had fully made up his mind what his wishes 
were to be, for he was determined not to be taken 
by surprise. He knew well the fate of those fool- 
ish persons in the fairy tales who offend their be- 
nevolent protectors by bouncing against them head 
foremost, as it were, with a greedy cry for wealth. 

Nils was not going to be caught that way. He 
would ask first for wisdom — that was what all right- 
minded heroes did — then for good repute among 
men, and lastly — and here was the rub — lastly he 
was inclined to ask for a five-bladed knife, like the 
one the parson’s Thorwald had got for a Christmas 
present. 


THE NIXY^S STRAIN 6 1 

But he had considerable misgiving about the ex- 
pediency of this last wish. If he had a fair renown 
and wisdom, might he not be able to get along with- 
out a five-bladed pocket-knife ? But no ; there 
was no help for it. Without that five-bladed 
pocket-knife neither wisdom nor fame would sat- 
isfy him. It would be the drop of gall in his cup 
of joy. 

After many days’ pondering, it occurred to him, 
as a way out of the difficulty, that it would, per- 
haps, not offend the Hulder if he asked, not for 
wealth, but for a moderate prosperity. If he were 
blessed with a moderate prosperity, he could, of 
course, buy a five-bladed pocket-knife with cork- 
screw and all other appurtenances, and still have 
something left over. 

He had a dreadful struggle with this question, 
for he was well aware that the proper things to 
wish were long life and happiness for his father and 
mother, or something in that line. But, though he 
wished his father and mother well, he could not 
make up his mind to forego his own precious 
chances on their account. Moreover, he consoled 
himself with the reflection that if he attained the 
goal of his own desires he could easily bestow upon 
them, of his bounty, a reasonable prospect of long 
life and happiness. 

You see Nils was by no means so good yet as he 
ought to be. He was clever enough to perceive 


62 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


that he had small chance of seeing the Hulder, as 
long as his heart was full of selfishness and envy 
and greed. 

For, strive as he might, he could not help feel- 
ing envious of the parson’s Thorwald, with his 
elaborate combination pocket-knife and his silver 
watch-chain, which he unfeelingly flaunted in the 
face of an admiring community. It was small con- 
solation for Nils to know that there was no watch 
but only a key attached to it ; for a silver watch- 
chain, even without a watch, was a sufficiently 
splendid possession to justify a boy in lording it 
over his less fortunate comrades. 

Nils’s father, who was a poor charcoal-burner, 
could never afford to make his son such a present, 
even if he worked until he was as black as a chim- 
ney-sweep. For what little money he earned was 
needed at once for food and clothes for the family ; 
and there were times when they were obliged to 
mix ground birch-bark with their flour in order to 
make it last longer. 

It was easy enough for a rich man’s son to be 
good. Nils thought. It was small credit to him if 
he was not envious, having never known want and 
never gone to bed on birch-bark porridge. But for 
a poor boy not to covet all the nice things which 
would make life so pleasant, if he had them, seemed 
next to impossible. 

Still Nils kept on making good resolutions and 



NILS ASKS THE SCHOOLMASTER FOR HIS FIDDLE, 


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THE NIXV^S STRATH 63 

breaking them, and then piecing them together again 
and breaking them anew. 

If it had not been for his desire to see the Hulder 
and the Nixy, and making them promise the ful- 
filment of the three wishes, he would have given up 
the struggle, and resigned himself to being a bad 
boy because he was born so. But those teasing 
glimpses of the Hulder’s scarlet bodice and golden 
hair, and the vague snatches of wondrous melody 
that rose from the cataract in the silent summer 
nights, filled his soul with an intense desire to see 
the whole Hulder, with her radiant smile and mel- 
ancholy eyes, and to hear the whole melody plainly 
enough to be written down on paper and learned 
by heart. 

It was with this longing to repeat the few haunt- 
ing notes that hummed in his brain that Nils went 
to the schoolmaster one day and asked him for the 
loan of his fiddle. But the schoolmaster, hearing 
that Nils could not play, thought his request a fool- 
ish one and refused. 

Nevertheless, that visit became an important 
event, and a turning-point in the boy’s life. For 
he was moved to confide in the schoolmaster, who 
was a kindly old man, and fond of clever boys; and 
he became interested in Nils. Though he regarded 
Nils’s desire to record the Nixy’s strains as absurd, 
he offered to teach him to play. There was good 
stuff in the lad, he thought, and when he had out- 


64 


B O YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 


grown his fantastic nonsense, he might, very likely, 
make a good fiddler. 

Thus it came to pass that the charcoal-burner’s 
son learned to play the violin. He had not had half 
a dozen lessons before he set about imitating the 
Nixy’s notes which he had heard in the waterfall. 

“ It was this way,” he said to the schoolmaster, 
pressing his ear against the violin, while he ran the 
bow lightly over the strings ; ‘‘ or rather it was this 
way,” making another ineffectual effort. “ No, no, 
that wasn’t it, either. It’s no use, schoolmaster : I 
shall never be able to do it ! ” he cried, flinging the 
violin on the table and rushing out of the door. 

When he returned the next day he was heartily 
ashamed of his impatience. To try to catch the 
Nixy’s notes after half a dozen lessons was, of 
course, an absurdity. 

The master told him simply to banish such folly 
from his brain, to apply himself diligently to his 
scales, and not to bother himself about the Nixy. 

That seemed to be sound advice and Nils accepted 
it with contrition. He determined never to repeat 
his silly experiment. But when the next midsum- 
mer night came, a wild yearning possessed him, and 
he stole out noiselessly into the forest, and sat down 
on a stone by the river, listening intently. 

For a long while he heard nothing but the 
monotonous boom of the water plunging into the 
deep. But, strangely enough, there was a vague. 


THE NIXY'S STRAIN 


65 


hushed rhythm in this thundering roar ; and after 
a while he seemed to hear a faint strain, ravish- 
ingly sweet, which vibrated on the air for an in- 
stant and vanished. 

It seemed to steal upon his ear unawares, and 
the moment he listened, with a determination to 
catch it, it was gone. But sweet it was — inex- 
pressibly sweet. 

Let the master talk as much as he liked, catch 
it he would and catch it he must. But he must 
acquire greater skill before he would be able to 
render something so delicate and elusive. 

Accordingly Nils applied himself with all his 
might and main to his music, in the intervals 
between his work. 

He was big enough now to accompany his father 
to the woods, and help him pile turf and earth on 
the heap of logs that were to be burned to char- 
coal. He did not see the Hulder face to face, 
though he was constantly on the watch for her ; 
but once or twice he thought he saw a swift flash 
of scarlet and gold in the underbrush, and again 
and again he thought he heard her soft, teasing 
laughter in the alder copses. That, too, he imag- 
ined he might express in music ; and the next time 
he got hold of the schoolmaster’s fiddle he quavered 
away on the fourth string, but produced nothing 
that had the remotest resemblance to melody, much 
less to that sweet laughter. 


66 


BOYHOOD m NORWAY 


He grew so discouraged that he could have wept. 
He had a wild impulse to break the fiddle, and 
never touch another as long as he lived. But he 
knew he could not live up to any such resolution. 
The fiddle was already too dear to him to be re- 
nounced for a momentary whim. But it was like 
an unrequited affection, which brought as much 
sorrow as joy. 

There was so much that Nils burned to express ; 
but the fiddle refused to obey him, and screeched 
something utterly discordant, as it seemed, from 
sheer perversity. 

It occurred to Nils again, that unless the Nixy 
took pity on him and taught him that marvellous, 
airy strain he would never catch it. Would he 
then ever be good enough to win the favor of the 
Nixy ? 

^ For in the fairy tales it is always the bad people 
who come to grief, while the good and merciful 
ones are somehow rewarded. 

It was evidently because he was yet far from being 
good enough that both Hulder and Nixy eluded 
him. Sunday child though he was, there seemed 
to be small chance that he would ever be able to 
propound his three wishes. 

Only now, the third wish was no longer a five- 
bladed pocket-knife, but a violin of so fine a ring 
and delicate modulation that it might render the 
Nixy’s strain. 


THE NIXY^S STRAIN 


67 


While these desires and fancies fought in his 
heart, Nils grew to be a young man ; and he still 
was, what he had always been — a charcoal-burner. 
He went to the parson for half a year to prepare 
for confirmation ; and by his gentleness and sweet- 
ness of disposition attracted not only the good man 
himself, but all with whom he came in contact. 
His answers were always thoughtful, and betrayed 
a good mind. 

He was not a prig, by any means, who held aloof 
from sport and play ; he could laugh with the 
merriest, run a race with the swiftest, and try a 
wrestling match with the strongest. 

There was no one among the candidates for 
confirmation, that year, who was so well liked as 
Nils. Gentle as he was and soft-spoken, there 
was a manly spirit in him, and that always com- 
mands respect among boys. 

He received much praise from the pastor, and 
no one envied him the kind words that were ad- 
dressed to him ; for every one felt that they were 
deserved. But the thought in Nils’s mind during 
all the ceremony in the church and in the parsonage 
was this : 

“ Now, perhaps, I shall be good enough to win 
the Nixy’s favor. Now I shall catch the wondrous 
strain.” 

It did not occur to him, in his eagerness, that such 
a reflection was out of place in church ; nor was it. 


68 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


perhaps, for the Nixy’s strain was constantly as- 
sociated in his mind with all that was best in him ; 
with his highest aspirations, and his constant striv- 
ings for goodness and nobleness in thought and 
deed. 

It happened about this time that the old school- 
master died, and in his will it was found that he 
had bequeathed his fiddle to Nils. He had very 
little else to leave, poor fellow ; but if he had been 
a Croesus he could not have given his favorite pu- 
pil anything that would have delighted him more. 

Nils played now early and late, except when he 
was in the woods with his father. His fame went 
abroad through all the valley as the best fiddler in 
seven parishes round, and people often came from 
afar to hear him. There was a peculiar quality in 
his playing — something strangely appealing, that 
brought the tears to one’s eyes — yet so elusive that 
it was impossible to repeat or describe it. 

It was rumored among the villagers that he had 
caught the Nixy’s strain, and that it was that which 
touched the heart so deeply in his improvisations. 
But Nils knew well that he had not caught the 
Nixy’s strain ; though a faint echo — a haunting 
undertone — of that vaguely remembered snatch of 
melody, heard now and then in the water’s roar, 
would steal at times into his music, when he was, 
perhaps, himself least aware of it. 

Invitations now came to him from far and wide 


THE NIXY'S STRAIN 


69 


to play at wedding and dancing parties and funerals. 
There was no feast complete without Nils; and 
soon this strange thing was noticed, that quarrels 
and brawls, which in those days were common 
enough in Norway, were rare wherever Nils played. 

It seemed as if his calm and gentle presence called 
forth all that was good in the feasters and banished 
whatever was evil. Such was his popularity that 
he earned more money by his fiddling in a week 
than his father had ever done by charcoal-burning 
in a month. 

A half-superstitious regard for him became general 
among the people ; first, because it seemed impos- 
sible that any man could play as he did without the 
aid of some supernatural power ; and secondly, be- 
cause his gentle demeanor and quaint, terse sayings 
inspired them with admiration. It was difficult to 
tell by whom the name. Wise Nils, was first started, 
but it was felt by all to be appropriate, and it there- 
fore clung to the modest fiddler, in spite of all his 
protests. 

Before he was twenty-five years old it became 
the fashion to go to him and consult him in difficult 
situations ; and though he long shrank from giving 
advice, his reluctance wore away, when it became 
evident to him that he could actually benefit the 
people. 

There was nothing mysterious in his counsel. 
All he said was as clear and rational as the day- 


70 BO Y HO OD IN NOR IV A Y 

light. But the good folk were nevertheless inclined 
to attribute a higher authority to him ; and would 
desist from vice or folly for his sake, when they 
would not for their own sake. It was odd, indeed : 
this Wise Nils, the fiddler, became a great man 
in the valley, and his renown went abroad and 
brought him visitors, seeking his counsel, from 
distant parishes. Rarely did anyone leave him dis- 
appointed, or at least without being benefited by 
his sympathetic advice. 

One summer, during the tourist season, a famous 
foreign musician came to Norway, accompanied by 
a rich American gentleman. While in his neigh- 
borhood, they heard the story of the rustic fiddler, 
and became naturally curious to see him. 

They accordingly went to his cottage, in order 
to have some sport with him, for they expected 
to find a vain and ignorant charlatan, inflated by 
the flattery of his more ignorant neighbors. But 
Nils received them with a simple dignity which 
quite disarmed them. They had come to mock ; 
they stayed to admire. This peasant’s artless 
speech, made up of ancient proverbs and shrewd 
common -sense, and instinct with a certain sunny 
beneficence, impressed them wonderfully. 

And when, at their request, he played some of 
his improvisations, the renowned musician exclaimed 
that here was, indeed, a great artist lost to the 
world. In spite of the poor violin, there was a 


THE NIXY^S STRAIN 


71 


marvellously touching quality in the music ; some- 
thing new and alluring which had never been heard 
before. 

But Nils himself was not aware of it. Occasion- 
ally, while he played, the Nixy’s haunting strain 
would flit through his brain, or hover about it, 
where he could feel it, as it were, but yet be un- 
able to catch it. This was his regret — his constant 
chase for those elusive notes that refused to be 
captured. 

But he consoled himself many a time with the 
reflection that it was the fiddle’s fault, not his own. 
With a finer instrument, capable of rendering more 
delicate shades of sound, he might yet surprise the 
Nixy’s strain, and record it unmistakably in black 
and white. 

The foreign musician and his American friend 
departed, but returned at the end of two weeks. 
They then offered to accompany Nils on a concert 
tour through all the capitals of Europe and the 
large cities of America, and to insure him a sum 
of money which fairly made him dizzy. 

Nils begged for time to consider, and the next 
day surprised them by declining the startling offer. 

He was a peasant, he said, and must remain a 
peasant. He belonged here in his native valley, 
where he could do good, and was happy in the 
belief that he was useful. 

Out in the great world, of which he knew noth- 


72 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


ing, he might indeed gather wealth, but he might 
lose his peace of mind, which was more precious 
than wealth. He was content with a moderate 
prosperity, and that he had already attained. He 
had enough, and more than enough, to satisfy his 
modest wants, and to provide those who were dear 
to him with reasonable comfort in their present 
condition of life. 

The strangers were amazed at a man’s thus calmly 
refusing a fortune that was within his easy grasp, 
for they did not doubt that Nils, with his entirely 
unconventional manner of playing, and yet with 
that extraordinary moving quality in his play, would 
become the rage both in Europe and America, as a 
kind of heaven-born, untutored genius, and fill both 
his own pockets and theirs with shekels. 

They made repeated efforts to persuade him, but 
it was all in vain. With smiling serenity, he told 
them that he had uttered his final decision. They 
then took leave of him, and a month after their 
departure there arrived from Germany a box ad- 
dressed to Nils. He opened it with some trepida- 
tion, and it was found to contain a Cremona violin 
— a genuine Stradivarius. 

The moment Nils touched the strings with the 
bow, a thrill of rapture went through him, the like 
of which he had never experienced. The divine 
sweetness and purity of the tone that vibrated 
through those magic chambers resounded through 


THE NIXY'S STRAIN 73 

all his being, and made him feel happy and ex- 
alted. 

It occurred to him, while he was coaxing the 
intoxicating music from his instrument, that to- 
night would be midsummer night. Now was his 
chance to catch the Nixy’s strain, for this exquisite 
violin would be capable of rendering the very chant 
of the archangels in the morning of time. 

To-night he would surprise the Nixy, and the 
divine strain should no more drift like a melodious 
mist through his brain ; for at midsummer night the 
Nixy always plays the loudest, and then, if ever, is 
the time to learn what he felt must be the highest 
secret of the musical art. 

Hugging his Stradivarius close to his breast, to 
protect it from the damp night-air. Nils hurried 
through the birch woods down to the river. The 
moon was sailing calmly through a fleecy film of 
cloud, and a light mist hovered over the tops of the 
forest. 

The fiery afterglow of the sunset still lingered in 
the air, though the sun had long been hidden, but 
the shadows of the trees were gaunt and dark, as 
in the light of the moon. 

The sound of the cataract stole with a whispering 
rush through the underbrush, for the water was low 
at midsummer, and a good deal of it was diverted to 
the mill, which was working busily away, with its 
big water-wheel going round and round. 


74 


BOYHOOD IN NOB IV AY 


Nils paused close to the mill, and peered intently 
into the rushing current ; but nothing appeared. 
Then he stole down to the river-bank, where he 
seated himself on a big stone, barely out of reach 
of the spray, which blew in gusts from the cataract. 
He sat for a long while motionless, gazing with rapt 
intentness at the struggling, foaming rapids, but he 
saw or heard nothing. 

Then all of a sudden it seemed to him that the 
air began to vibrate faintly with a vague, captivat- 
ing rhythm. Nils could hear his heart beat in his 
throat. With trembling eagerness he unwrapped 
the violin and raised it to his chin. 

Now, surely, there was a note. It belonged on 
the A string. No, not there. On the £ string, per- 
haps. But no, not there, either. 

Look ! What is that ? 

A flash, surely, through the water of a beautiful 
naked arm. 

And there — no, not there — but somewhere from 
out of the gentle rush of the middle current there 
seemed to come to him a marvellous mist of drift- 
ing sound — ineffably, rapturously sweet ! 

With a light movement Nils runs his bow over 
the strings, but not a ghost, not a semblance, can 
he reproduce of the swift, scurrying flight of that 
wondrous melody. Again and again he listens 
breathlessly, and again and again despair over- 
whelms him. 


THE mXY^S STRAIN- 75 

Should he, then, never see the Nixy, and ask the 
fulfilment of his three wishes ? 

Curiously enough, those three wishes which once 
were so great a part of his life had now almost 
escaped him. It was the Nixy’s strain he had been 
intent upon, and the wishes had lapsed into ob- 
livion. 

And what were they, really, those three wishes, 
for the sake of which he desired to confront the 
Nixy ? 

Well, the first — the first was — what was it, now ? 
Yes, now at length he remembered. The first was 
wisdom. 

Well, the people called him Wise Nils now, so, 
perhaps, that wish was superfluous. Very likely he 
had as much wisdom as was good for him. At all 
events, he had refused to acquire more by going 
abroad to acquaint himself with the affairs of the 
great world. 

Then the second wish ; yes, he could recall that. 
It was fame. It was odd indeed ; that, too, he had 
refused, and what he possessed of it was as much, 
or even far more, than he desired. But when he 
called to mind the third and last of his boyish 
wishes, a moderate prosperity or a good violin — for 
that was the alternative — he had to laugh outright, 
for both the violin and the prosperity were already 
his. 

Nils lapsed into deep thought, as he sat there in 


76 


B O YHO OD IN NOR IV A Y 


the summer night, with the crowns of the trees 
above him and the brawling rapids swirling about 
him. 

Had not the Nixy bestowed upon him her best 
gift already in permitting him to hear that exquisite 
ghost of a melody, that shadowy, impalpable strain, 
which had haunted him these many years ? In pur- 
suing that he had gained the goal of his desires, till 
other things he had wished for had come to him 
unawares, as it were, and almost without his know- 
ing it. And now what had he to ask of the Nixy, 
who had blessed him so abundantly ? 

The last secret, the wondrous strain, forsooth, 
that he might imprison it in notes, and din it in the 
ears of an unappreciative multitude ! Perhaps it 
were better, after all, to persevere forever in the 
quest, for what would life have left to offer him if 
the Nixy’s strain was finally caught, when all were 
finally attained, and no divine melody haunted the 
brain, beyond the powers even of a Stradivarius to 
lure from its shadowy realm ? 

Nils walked home that night plunged in deep 
meditation. He vowed to himself that he would 
never more try to catch the Nixy’s strain. But the 
next day, when he seized the violin, there it was 
again, and, strive as he might, he could not forbear 
trying to catch it. 

Wise Nils is many years older now ; has a good 
wife and several childre^i, and is a happy man ; but 


THE NIXY^S STRAIN 


77 


to this day, resolve as he will, he has never been 
able to abandon the effort to catch the Nixy’s strain. 
Sometimes he thinks he has half caught it, but 
when he tries to play it, it is always gone. 


THE WONDER CHILD 


1 . 


A VERY common belief in Norway, as in many 
other lands, is that the seventh child of the seventh 
child can heal the sick by the laying on of hands. 
Such a child is therefore called a wonder child. 
Little Carina Holt was the seventh in a family of 
eight brothers and sisters, but she grew to be six 
years old before it became generally known that she 
was a wonder child. Then people came from afar 
to see her, bringing their sick with them ; and 
morning after morning, as Mrs. Holt rolled up the 
shades, she found invalids, seated or standing in the 
snow, gazing with devout faith and anxious longing 
toward Carina’s window. 

It seemed a pity to send them away uncomforted, 
when the look and the touch cost Carina so little. 
But there was another fear that arose in the 
mother s breast, and that was lest her child should 
be harmed by the veneration with which she was 
regarded, and perhaps come to believe that she was 
something more than a common mortal. What 


THE WONDER CHILD 


79 


was more natural than that a child who was told by 
grown-up people that there was healing in her 
touch, should at last come to believe that she was 
something apart and extraordinary ? 

It would have been a marvel, indeed, if the con- 
stant attention she attracted, and the pilgrimages 
that were made to her, had failed to make any im- 
pression upon her sensitive mind. Vain she was 
not, and it would have been unjust to say that she 
was spoiled. She had a tender nature, full of sym- 
pathy for sorrow and suffering. She was constantly 
giving away her shoes, her stockings, nay, even her 
hood and cloak, to poor little invalids, whose misery 
appealed to her merciful heart. It was of no use to 
scold her ; you could no more prevent a stream 
from flowing than Carina from giving. It was a 
spontaneous yielding to an impulse that was too 
strong to be resisted. 

But to her father there was something unnatural 
in it ; he would have preferred to have her frankly 
selfish, as most children are, not because he thought 
it lovely, but because it was childish and natural. 
Her unusual goodness gave him a pang more pain- 
ful than ever the bad behavior of her brothers had 
occasioned. On the other hand, it delighted him 
to see her do anything that ordinary children did. 
He was charmed if she could be induced to take 
part in a noisy romp, play tag, or dress her dolls. 
But there followed usually after each outbreak of 


8o 


BOYHOOD m NORWAY 


natural mirth a shy withdrawal into herself, a reso- 
lute and quiet retirement, as if she were a trifle 
ashamed of her gayety. There was nothing morbid 
in these moods, no brooding sadness or repentance, 
but a touching solemnity, a serene, almost cheer- 
ful seriousness, which in one of her years seemed 
strange. 

Mr. Holt had many a struggle with himself as to 
how he should treat Carina’s delusion ; and he 
made up his mind, at last, that it was his duty to do 
everything in his power to dispel and counteract it. 
When he happened to overhear her talking to her 
dolls one day, laying her hands upon them, and 
curing them of imaginary diseases, he concluded it 
was high time for him to act. He called Carina to 
him, remonstrated kindly with her, and forbade her 
henceforth to see the people who came to her for 
the purpose of being cured. But it distressed him 
greatly to see how reluctantly she consented to 
obey him. 

When Carina awoke the morning after this prom- 
ise had been extorted from her, she heard the dogs 
barking furiously in the yard below. Her elder 
sister, Agnes, was standing half dressed before the 
mirror, holding the end of one blond braid between 
her teeth, while tying the other with a pink ribbon. 
Seeing that Carina was awake, she gave her a nod 
in the glass, and, removing her braid, observed that 


THE WONDER CHILD 


8l 


there evidently were sick pilgrims under the win- 
dow. She could sympathize with Sultan and Hec- 
tor, she averred, in their dislike of pilgrims. 

“ Oh, 1 wish they would not come ! ” sighed 
Carina. “ It will be so hard for me to send them 
away.” 

“ I thought you liked curing people,” exclaimed 
Agnes. 

“ I do, sister, but papa has made me promise 
never to do it again.” 

She arose and began to dress, her sister assisting 
her, chatting all the while like a gay little chir- 
ruping bird that neither gets nor expects an answer. 
She was too accustomed to Carina’s moods to be 
either annoyed or astonished ; but she loved her all 
the same, and knew that her little ears were wide 
open, even though she gave no sign of listening. 

Carina had just completed her simple toilet when 
Guro, the chamber-maid, entered, and announced 
that there were some sick folk below who wished to 
see the wonder child. 

“ Tell them I cannot see them,” answered Carina, 
with a tremulous voicfe; ‘'papa does not permit 
me. 

“ But this man, Atle Pilot, has come from so far 
away in this dreadful cold,” pleaded Guro, “and 
his son is so very bad, poor thing ; he’s lying down 
in the boat, and he sighs and groans fit to move a 
stone.” 


6 


82 


B O YHO OD m NOR WA Y 


“ Don’t ! Don’t tell her that,” interposed Agnes, 
motioning to the girl to begone. “ Don’t you see 
it is hard enough for her already ? ” 

There was something in the air, as the two sisters 
descended the stairs hand in hand, which foreboded 
calamity. The pastor had given out from the pul- 
pit last Sunday that he would positively receive no 
invalids at his house ; and he had solemnly charged 
every one to refrain from bringing their sick to his 
daughter. He had repeated this announcement 
again and again, and he was now very much an- 
noyed at his apparent powerlessness to protect his 
child from further imposition. Loud and angry 
speech was heard in his office, and a noise as if the 
furniture were being knocked about. The two little 
girls remained standing on the stairs, each gazing at 
the other’s frightened face. Then there was a great 
bang, and a stalwart, elderly sailor came tumbling 
head foremost out into the hall. His cap was flung 
after him through the crack of the door. Agnes 
saw for an instant her father’s face, red and excited ; 
and in his bearing there was something wild and 
strange, which was so different from his usual gentle 
and dignified appearance. The sailor stood for a 
while bewildered, leaning against the wall ; then he 
stooped slowly and picked up his cap. But the 
moment he caught sight of Carina his embarrass- 
ment vanished, and his rough features were illu- 
minated with an intense emotion. 


THE WONDER CHILD 


83 


“ Come, little miss, and help me,” he cried, in a 
hoarse, imploring whisper. “ Halvor, my son — he 
is the only one God gave me — he is sick; he is 
going to die, miss, unless you take pity on him.” 

“ Where is he ? ’’ asked Carina. 

“ He’s down in the boat, miss, at the pier. But 
I’ll carry him up to you, if you like. We have 
been rowing half the night in the cold, and he is 
very low.” 

“ No, no ; you mustn’t bring him here,” said 
Agnes, seeing by Carina’s face that she was on the 
point of yielding. “ Father would be so angry.” 

“ He may kill me if he likes,” exclaimed the 
sailor, wildly. “ It doesn’t matter to me. But 
Halvor he’s the only one I have, miss, and his 
mother died when he was born, and he is young, 
miss, and he will have many years to live, if you’ll 
only have mercy on him.” 

“ But, you know, I shouldn’t dare, on papa’s ac- 
count, to have you bring him here,” began Carina, 
struggling with her tears. 

“ Ah, yes ! Then you will go to him. God bless 
you for that ! ” cried the poor man, with agonized 
eagerness. And interpreting the assent he read in 
Carina’s eye, he caught her up in his arms, snatched 
a coat from a peg in the wall, and wrapping her in 
it, tore open the door. Carina made no outcry, and 
was not in the least afraid. She felt herself resting 
in two strong arms, warmly wrapped and borne away 


84 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


at a great speed over the snow. But Agnes, see- 
ing her sister vanish in that sudden fashion, gave a 
scream which called her father to the door. 

“ What has happened ? ” he asked. “ Where is 
Carina ? ” 

“ That dreadful Atle Pilot took her and ran away 
with her.” 

“ Ran away with her ? ” cried the pastor in alarm. 
“How? Where?” 

“ Down to the pier.” 

It was a few moments’ work for the terrified fa- 
ther to burst open the door, and with his velvet 
skull-cap on his head, and the skirts of his dressing- 
gown flying wildly about him, rush down toward 
the beach. He saw Atle Pilot scarcely fifty feet in 
advance of him, and shouted to him at the top of 
his voice. But the sailor only redoubled his speed, 
and darted out upon the pier, hugging tightly to 
his breast the precious burden he carried. So blind- 
ly did he rush ahead that the pastor expected to 
see him plunge headlong into the icy waves. But, 
as by a miracle, he suddenly checked himself, and 
grasping with one hand the flag-pole, swung around 
it, a foot or two above the black water, and regained 
his foothold upon the planks. He stood for an in- 
stant irresolute, staring down into a boat which lay 
moored to the end of the pier. What he saw re- 
sembled a big bundle, consisting of a sheepskin coat 
and a couple of horse-blankets. 


THE WONDER CHILD 85 

“ Halvor,” he cried, with a voice that shook with 
emotion, “ I have brought her.” 

There was presently a vague movement under the 
horse-blankets, and after a minute’s struggle a pale 
yellowish face became visible. It was a young face 
— the face of a boy of fifteen or sixteen. But, oh, 
what suffering was depicted in those sunken eyes, 
those bloodless, cracked lips, and the shrunken yel- 
low skin which clung in premature wrinkles about 
the emaciated features ! An old and worn fur cap 
was pulled down over his ears, but from under its 
rim a few strands of blond hair were hanging upon 
his forehead. 

Atle had just disentangled Carina from her 
wrappings, and was about to descend the stairs 
to the water when a heavy hand seized him by 
the shoulder, and a panting voice shouted in his 
ear : 

“ Give me back my child.” 

He paused, and turned his pathetically bewildered 
face toward the pastor. “ You wouldn’t take him 
from me, parson,” he stammered, helplessly ; “ no, 
you wouldn’t. He’s the only one I’ve got.” 

“ I don’t take him from you,” the parson thun- 
dered, wrathfully. “ But what right have you to 
come and steal my child, because yours, is ill ? ” 

“ When life is at stake, parson,” said the pilot, 
imploringly, “one gets muddled about right and 
wrong. I’ll do your little girl no harm. Only let 


86 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


her lay her blessed hands upon my poor boy’s head, 
and he will be well.” 

“ I have told you no, man, and I must put a stop 
to this stupid idolatry, which will ruin my child, 
and do you no good. Give her back to me, I say, 
at once.” 

The pastor held out his hand to receive Carina, 
who stared at him with large pleading eyes out of 
the grizzly wolf-skin coat. 

“ Be good to him, papa,” she begged. “ Only 
this once.” 

“ No, child ; no parleying now ; come instantly.” 

And he seized her by main force, and tore her 
out of the pilot’s arms. But to his dying day he 
remembered the figure of the heart-broken man, as 
he stood outlined against the dark horizon, shak- 
ing his clinched fists against the sky, and crying out, 
in a voice of despair : 

“ May God show you the same mercy on the 
J udgment Day as you have shown to me ! ” 


II. 

Six miserable days passed. The weather was 
stormy, and tidings of shipwreck and calamity filled 
the air. Scarcely a visitor came to the parsonage 
who had not some tale of woe to relate. The pastor, 
who was usually so gentle and cheerful, wore a dis- 


THE WONDER CHILD 87 

mal face, and it was easy to see that something was 
weighing on his mind. 

“ May God show you the same mercy on the 
Judgment Day as you have shown to me ! ” 

These words rang constantly in his ears by night 
and by day. Had he not been right, according to 
the laws of God and man, in defending his house- 
hold against the assaults of ignorance and supersti- 
tion ? Would he have been justified in sacrificing his 
own child, even if he could thereby save another’s ? 
And, moreover, was it not all a wild, heathenish 
delusion, which it was his duty as a servant of God 
to stamp out and root out at all hazards ? Yes, 
there could be no doubt of it ; he had but exercised 
his legal right. He had done what was demanded 
of him by laws human and divine. He had nothing 
to reproach himself for. And yet, with a haunting 
persistency, the image of the despairing pilot pray- 
ing God for vengeance stared at him from every 
dark corner, and in the very church bells, as they 
rang out their solemn invitation to the house of God, 
he seemed to hear the rhythm and cadence of the 
heart-broken father’s imprecation. In the depth of 
his heart there was a still small voice which told him 
that, say what he might, he had acted cruelly. If 
he put himself in Atle Pilot’s place, bound as he 
was in the iron bonds of superstition, how different 
the case would look ? He saw himself, in spirit, 
rowing in a lonely boat through the stormy winter 


88 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


night to his pastor, bringing his only son, who was 
at the point of death, and praying that the pastor’s 
daughter might lay her hands upon him, as Christ 
had done to the blind, the halt, and the maimed. 
And his pastor received him with wrath, nay, with 
blows, and sent him away uncomforted. It was a 
hideous picture indeed, and Mr. Holt would have 
given years of his life to be rid of it. 

It was on the sixth day after Atle’s visit that the. 
pastor, sitting alone in his study, called Carina to 
him. He had scarcely seen her during the last six 
days, or at. least talked with her. Her sweet inno- 
cent spirit would banish the shadows that darkened 
his soul. 

“ Carina,” he said, in his old affectionate way, 
“ papa wants to see you. Come here and let me 
talk a little with you.” 

But could he trust his eyes? Carina, who for- 
merly had run so eagerly into his arms, stood hesi- 
tating, as if she hoped to be excused. 

“ Well, my little girl,” he asked, in a tone of 
apprehension, “ don’t you want to talk with 
papa ? ” 

“ I would rather wait till some other time, papa,” 
she managed to stammer, while her little face 
flushed with embarrassment. 

Mr. Holt closed the door silently, flung himself 
into a chair, and groaned. That was a blow from 
where he had least expected it. The child had 


THE WONDER CHILD 


89 

judged him and found him wanting. His Carina, 
his darling, who had always been closest to his heart, 
no longer responded to his affection ! Was the 
pilot’s prayer being fulfilled ? Was he losing his 
own child in return for the one he had refused to 
save ? With a pang in his breast, which was like 
an aching wound, he walked up and down on the 
floor and marvelled at his own blindness. He had 
erred indeed ; and there was no hope that any chance 
would come to him to remedy the wrong. 

The twilight had deepened into darkness while he 
revolved this trouble in his mind. The night was 
stormy, and the limbs of the trees without were con- 
tinually knocking and bumping against the walls of 
the house. The rusty weather-vane on the roof 
whined and screamed, and every now and then the 
sleet dashed against the window-panes like a hand- 
ful of shot. The wind hurled itself against the 
walls, so that the timbers creaked and pulled at 
the shutters, banged stray doors in out-of-the-way 
garrets, and then, having accomplished its work, 
whirled away over the fields with a wild and dis- 
mal howl. The pastor sat listening mournfully to 
this tempestuous commotion. Once he thought 
he heard a noise as of a door opening near by him, 
and softly closing ; but as he saw no one, he 
concluded it was his overwrought fancy that had 
played him a trick. He seated himself again in 
his easy-chair before the stove, which spread a dim 


90 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


light from its draught-hole into the surrounding 
gloom. 

While he sat thus absorbed in his meditations, he 
was startled at the sound of something resembling a 
sob. He arose to strike a light, but found that his 
match-safe was empty. But what was that ? A 
step without, surely, and the groping of hands for 
the door-knob. 

“ Who is there ? ” cried the pastor, with a shiver- 
ing uneasiness. 

He sprang forward and opened the door. A 
broad figure, surmounted by a sou’wester, loomed 
up in the dark. 

“ What do you want ? ” asked Mr. Holt, with 
forced calmness. 

“ I want to know,” answered a gruff, hoarse voice, 
“ if you’ll come to my son now, and help him into 
eternity ? ” 

The pastor recognized Atle Pilot’s voice, though 
it seemed harsher and hoarser than usual. 

“ Sail across the fjord on a night like this ? ” he 
exclaimed. 

“ That’s what I ask you.” 

“ And the boy is dying, you say ? ” 

“ Can’t last till morning.” 

“ And has he asked for the sacrament ? ” 

The pilot stepped across the threshold and entered 
the room. He proceeded slowly to pull off his 
mittens ; then looking up at the pastor’s face, upon 


THE WONDER CHILD 9 1 

which a vague sheen fell from the stove, he broke 
out : 

“ Will you come or will you not ? You wouldn’t 
help him to live ; now will you help him to die ?” 

The words, thrust forth with a slow, panting em- 
phasis, hit the pastor like so many blows. 

“ I will come,” he said, with solemn resolution. 
“ Sit down till I get ready.” 

He had expected some expression of gratification 
or thanks, for Atle well knew what he had asked. 
It was his life the pastor risked, but this time in his 
calling as a physician, not of bodies, but of souls. 
It struck him, while he took leave of his wife, that 
there was something resentful and desperate in the 
pilot’s manner, so different from his humble pleading 
at their last meeting. 

As he embraced the children one by one, and 
kissed them, he missed Carina, but was told that 
she had probably gone to the cow-stable with the 
dairy-maid, who was her particular friend. So he 
left tender messages for her, and, summoning Atle, 
plunged out into the storm. A servant w'alked 
before him with a lantern, and lighted the way 
down to the pier, where the boat lay tossing upon 
the waves. 

“ But, man,’^ cried the pastor, seeing that the boat 
was empty, “ where are your boatmen ? ” 

“ I am my own boatman,” answered Atle, 
gloomily. “ You can hold the sheet, I the tiller.” . 


92 BO YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 

Mr. Holt was ashamed of retiring now, when he 
had given his word. But it was with a sinking 
heart that he stepped into the frail skiff, which 
seemed scarcely more than a nutshell upon the 
tempestuous deep. He was on the point of asking 
his servant, unacquainted though he was with sea- 
manship, to be the third man in the boat ; but the 
latter, anticipating his intention, had made haste 
to betake himself away. To venture out into this 
roaring darkness, with no beacon to guide them, 
and scarcely a landmark discernible, was indeed to 
tempt Providence. 

But by the time he had finished this reflectibn, 
the pastor felt himself rushing along at a tre- 
mendous speed, and short, sharp commands rang in 
his ears, which instantly engrossed all his attention. 
To his eyes the sky looked black as ink, except for 
a dark-blue unearthly shimmer that now and then 
flared up from the north, trembled, and vanished. 
By this unsteady illumination it was possible to 
catch a momentary glimpse of a head, and a peak, 
and the outline of a mountain. The small sail was 
double-reefed, yet the boat careened so heavily that 
the water broke over the gunwale. The squalls beat 
down upon them with tumultuous roar and smoke, 
as of snow-drifts, in their wake ; but the little boat, 
climbing the top of the waves and sinking into the 
dizzy black pits between them, sped fearlessly along 
and the pastor began to take heart. Then, with a 



FULL OUT THE REEFS 








THE WONDER CHILD 93 

fierce cutting distinctness, came the command out 
of the dark. 

“ Pull out the reefs ! ’’ 

“ Are you crazy, man ? ” shouted the pastor. Do 
you want to sail straight into eternity ?” 

“ Pull out the reefs ! ” The command was re- 
peated with wrathful emphasis. 

“ Then we are dead men, both you and I.’’ 

“ So we are, parson — dead men. My son lies 
dead at home, though you might have saved him. 
So, now, parson, we are quits.” 

With a fierce laugh he rose up, and still holding 
the tiller, stretched his hand to tear out the reefs. 
But at that instant, just as a quivering shimmer 
broke across the sky, something rose up from under 
the thwart and stood between them. Atle started 
back with a hoarse scream. 

“ In Heaven’s name, child ! ” he cried. “ Oh, 
God, have mercy upon me ! ” 

And the pastor, not knowing whether he saw a 
child or a vision, cried out in the same moment : 
“Carina, my darling! Carina, how came you 
here ? ” 

It was Carina, indeed ; but the storm whirled 
her tiny voice away over the waves, and her father, 
folding her with one arm to his breast, while 
holding the sheet with the other, did not hear 
what she answered to his fervent exclamation. He 
only knew that her dear little head rested close to 


94 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


his heart, and that her yellow hair blew across his 
face. 

“ I wanted to save that poor boy, papa,” were the 
only words that met his ears. But he needed no 
more to explain the mystery. It was Carina, who, 
repenting of her unkindness to him, had stolen into 
his study, while he sat in the dark, and there she 
had heard Atle Pilot’s message. Even if this boy 
was sick unto death, she might perhaps cure him, 
and make up for her father’s harshness. Thus 
reasoned the sage Carina ; and she had gone secretly 
and prepared for the voyage, and battled with the 
storm, which again and again threw her down on 
her road to the pier. It was a miracle that she got 
safely into the boat, and stowed herself away snugly 
under the stern thwart. 

The clearing in the north gradually spread over 
the sky, and the storm abated. Soon they had the 
shore in view, and the lights of the fishermen’s cot- 
tages gleamed along the beach of the headland. 
Presently they ran into smoother water; a star or 
two flashed forth, and wide blue expanses appeared 
here and there on the vault of the sky. They spied 
the red lanterns marking the wharf, about which a 
multitude of boats lay, moored to stakes, and with 
three skilful tacks Atle made the harbor. It was 
here, standing on the pier, amid the swash and 
swirl of surging waters, that the pilot seized Cari- 
na’s tiny hand in his big and rough one. 


THE WONDER CHILD 


95 


** Parson,” he said, with a breaking voice, “ I was 
going to run afoul of you, and wreck myself with 
you ; but this child, God bless her 1 she ran us both 
into port, safe and sound.” 

But Carina did not hear what he said, for she lay 
sweetly sleeping in her father’s arms. 


“THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS” 


I. 


When Hakon Vang said his prayers at night, he 
usually finished with these words : “ And I thank 
thee, God, most of all, because thou madest me a 
Norseman, and not a German or an Englishman or 
a Swede.” 

To be a Norseman appears to the Norse boy a 
claim to distinction. God has made so many mil- 
lions of Englishmen and Russians and Germans, 
that there can be no particular honor in being one 
of so vast a herd ; while of Norsemen He has made 
only a small and select number, whom He looks 
after with special care ; upon whom He showers 
such favors as poverty and cold (with a view to 
keeping them good and hardy), and remoteness 
from all the glittering temptations that beset the 
nations in whom He takes a less paternal interest. 
Thus at least reasons, in a dim way, the small boy 
in Norway; thus he is taught to reason by his par- 
ents and instructors. 

As for Hakon Vang, he strutted along the beach 


**THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS^' 97 

like a turkey-cock, whenever he thought of his 
glorious descent from the Vikings — those daring 
pirates that stole thrones and kingdoms, and mixed 
their red Norse blood in the veins of all the royal 
families of Europe. The teacher of history (who 
was what is called a Norse-Norseman) had on one 
occasion, with more patriotic zeal than discretion, 
undertaken to pick out those boys in his class who 
were of pure Norse descent ; whose blood was un- 
tainted by any foreign admixture. The delighted 
pride of this small band made them an object of 
envy to all the rest of the school. Hakon, when 
his name was mentioned, felt as if he had added a 
yard to his height. Tears of joy started to his 
eyes ; and to give vent to his overcharged feelings, 
he broke into a war-whoop ; for which he received 
five black marks and was kept in at recess. 

But he minded that very little ; all great men, he 
reflected, have had to suffer for their country. 

What Hakon loved above all things to study — 
nay, the only thing he loved to study — was the old 
Sagasy which are tales, poems, and histories of the 
deeds of the Norsemen in ancient times. With 
eleven of his classmates, who were about his own 
age and as Norse as himself, he formed a brother- 
hood which was called “ The Sons of the Vikings.” 
They gave each other tremendously bloody sur- 
names, in the style of the Sagas— names that reeked 
with gore and heroism. Hakon himself assumed 
7 


98 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


the pleasing appellation “ Skull-splitter,” and his 
classmate Frithjof Ronning was dubbed Vargr-i- 
Veum^ which means Wolf-in-the-Temple. One Son 
of the Vikings was known as Ironbeard, another as 
Erling the Lop-Sided, a third as Thore the Hound, 
a fourth as Aslak Stone-Skull. But a serious dif- 
ficulty, which came near disrupting the brother- 
hood, arose over these very names. It was felt that 
Hakon had taken an unfair advantage of the rest in 
selecting the bloodiest name at the outset (before 
anyone else had had an opportunity to choose), and 
there was a general demand that he should give 
it up and allow all to draw lots for it. But this 
Hakon stoutly refused to do ; and declared that 
if anyone wanted his name he would have to fight 
for it, in good old Norse fashion. 

A holm^gang or duel was then arranged ; that is, 
a ring was marked out with stones ; the combatants 
stepped within it, and he who could drive his an- 
tagonist outside of the stone ring was declared to be 
the victor. Frithjof, who felt that he had a better 
claim to be named Skull-Splitter than Hakon, was 
the first to accept the challenge ; but after a terrible 
combat was forced to bite the dust. His conqueror 
was, however, filled with such a glowing admiration 
of his valor (as combatants in the Sagas frequent- 
ly are), that he proposed that they should swear 
eternal friendship and foster-brotherhood, and seal 
their compact, according to Norse custom, by the 




'^THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS'* 99 

ceremony called “ Mingling of Blood.” It is need- 
less to say that this seemed to all the boys a most 
delightful proposition ; and they entered upon the 
august rite with a deep sense of its solemnity. 

First a piece of sod, about twelve feet square, was 
carefully raised upon wooden stakes representing 
spears, so as to form a green roof over the foster- 
brothers. Then, sitting upon the black earth, where 
the turf had been removed, they bared their arms 
to the shoulder, and in the presence of his ten breth- 
ren, as witnesses, each swore that he would regard 
the other as his true brother and love him and treat 
him as such, and avenge his death if he survived 
him ; in solemn testirriony of which each drew a 
knife and opened a vein in his arm, letting their 
blood mingle and flow together. Hakon, however, 
in his heroic zeal, drove the knife into his flesh 
rather recklessly, and when the blood had flowed 
profusely for five minutes, he grew a trifle uneasy. 
Frithjof, after having bathed his arm in a neighbor- 
ing brook, had no difficulty in stanching the blood, 
but the poor Skull- Splitter’s wound, in spite of cold 
water and bandages, kept pouring forth its warm 
current without sign of abatement. Hakon grew 
paler and paler, and would have burst into tears, if 
he had not been a “ Son of the Vikings.’’ It would 
have been a relief to him, for the moment, not to 
have been a “ Son of the Vikings.” For he was ter- 
ribly frightened, and thought surely he was going 

tore 


100 


BOYHOOD IN NOB WAV 


to bleed to death. The other Vikings, too, began 
to feel rather alarmed at such a prospect ; and 
when Erling the Lop-Sided (the pastor’s son) pro- 
posed that they should carry Hakon to the doctor, 
no one made any objection. But the doctor unhap- 
pily lived so far away that Hakon might die before 
he got there. 

“ Well, then,” said Wolf-in-the-Temple, “ let us 
take him to old Witch-Martha. She can stanch 
blood and do lots of other queer things.” 

“Yes, and that is much more Norse, too,” sug- 
gested Thore the Hound ; “ wise women learned 
physic and bandaged wounds in the olden time. 
Men were never doctors.” 

“Yes, Witch-Martha is just the right style,’’ said 
Erling the Lop-Sided down in his boots ; for he had 
naturally a shrill voice and gave himself great pains 
to produce a manly bass. 

“ We must make a litter to carry the Skull-Split- 
ter on,” exclaimed Einar Bowstring-Twanger (the 
sheriff’s son); “he’ll never get to Witch-Martha 
alive if he is to walk.” 

This suggestion was favorably received ; the boys 
set to work with a will, and in a few minutes had 
put together a litter of green twigs and branches. 
Hakonj who was feeling curiously light-headed and 
exhausted, allowed himself to be placed upon it in a 
reclining position ; and its swinging motion, as his 
friends carried it along, nearly rocked him to sleep. 


*'THE SONS OF THE VIKING S^^ 


lOI 


The fear of death was but vaguely present to his 
mind ; but his self-importance grew with every mo- 
ment, as he saw his blood trickle through the leaves 
and drop at the roadside. He appeared to himself 
a brave Norse warrior who was being carried by his 
comrades from the battle-field, where he had greatly 
distinguished himself. And now to be going to the 
witch who, by magic rhymes and incantations, was 
to stanch the ebbing stream of his life — what could 
be more delightful ? 


II. 

Witch-Martha lived in a small lonely cottage 
down by the river. Very few people ever went to 
see her in the day-time ; but at night she often had 
visitors. Mothers who suspected that their children 
were changelings, whom the Trolds had put in the 
cradle, taking the human infants away ; girls who 
wanted to “ turn the hearts ” of their lovers, and 
lovers who wanted to turn the hearts of the girls ; 
peasants who had lost money or valuables and 
wanted help to trace the thief — these and many 
others sought secret counsel with Witch - Martha, 
and rarely went away uncomforted. She was an 
old weather-beaten woman with a deeply wrinkled, 
smoky-brown face, and small shrewd black eyes. 
The floor in her cottage was strewn with sand and 
fresh juniper twigs ; from the rafters under the ceil- 


102 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


ing hung bunches of strange herbs ; and in the 
windows were flower - pots with blooming plants in 
them. 

Martha was stooping at the hearth, blowing and 
puffing at the fire under her coffee-pot, when the 
Sons of the Vikings knocked at the door. Wolf-in- 
the-Temple was the man who took the lead ; and 
when Witch-Martha opened the upper half of the 
door (she never opened both at the same time) she 
was not a little astonished to see the Captain’s son, 
Frithjof Ronning, staring up at her with an anxious 
face. 

“ What dost thou want, lad ?” she asked, grufffy ; 
“ thou hast gone astray surely, and I'll show thee 
the way home.” 

“ I am Wolf - in - the - Temple,” began Frithjof, 
thrusting out his chest, and raising his head proudly. 

“ Dear me, you don’t say so ! ” exclaimed Martha. 

“ My comrade and foster-brother Skull-Splitter 
has been wounded ; and I want thee, old crone, to 
stanch his blood before he bleeds to death.” 

“ Dear, dear me, how very strange ! ” ejaculated 
the Witch, and shook her aged head. 

She had been accustomed to extraordinary re- 
quests ; but the language of this boy struck her as 
being something of the queerest she had yet heard. 

“ Where is thy Skull-Splitter, lad ? ” she asked, 
looking at him dubiously. 

“ Right here in the underbrush,” Wolf-in-the- 


^*THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS" IO3 

Temple retorted, gallantly; “stir thy aged stumps 
now, and thou shalt be right royally rewarded.” 

He had learned from Walter Scott’s romances 
that this was the proper way to address inferiors, 
and he prided himself not a little on his jaunty con- 
descension. Imagine then his surprise when the 
“ old crone ” suddenly turned on him with an angry 
scowl and said : 

“ If thou canst not keep a civil tongue in thy 
head, I’ll bring a thousand plagues upon thee, thou 
unmannerly boy.” 

By this threat Wolf-in-the-Temple’s courage was 
sadly shaken. He knew Martha’s reputation as a 
witch, and had no desire to test in his own person 
whether rumor belied her. 

“ Please, mum, I beg of you,” he said, with a sud- 
den change of tone ; “ my friend Hakon Vang is 
bleeding to death ; won’t you please help him ?” 

“ Thy friend Hakon Vang ! ” cried Martha, to 
whom that name was very familiar ; “ bring him in, 
as quick as thou canst, and I’ll do what I can for 
him.” 

Wolf - in - the - Temple put two fingers into his 
mouth and gave a loud shrill whistle, which was an- 
swered from the woods, and presently the small pro- 
cession moved up to the door, carrying their wound- 
ed comrade between them. The poor Skull-Splitter 
was now as white as a sheet, and the drowsiness of 
his eyes and the laxness of his features showed that 


104 


B O YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 


help came none too early. Martha, in hot haste, 
grabbed a bag of herbs, thrust it into a pot of warm 
water, and clapped it on the wound. Then she be- 
gan to wag her head slowly to and fro, and crooned, 
to a soft apd plaintive tune, words which sounded 
to the ears of the boys shudderingly strange : 

I conjure in water, I conjure in lead, 

I conjure with herbs that grew o’er the dead ; 

I conjure with flowers that I plucked, without shoon. 
When the ghosts were abroad, in the wane of the moon. 
I conjure with spirits of earth and air 
That make the wind sigh and cry in despair ; 

I conjure by him within sevenfold rings 
That sits and broods at the roots of things. 

I conjure by him who healeth strife. 

Who plants and waters the germs of life. 

I conjure, I conjure, I bid thee be still. 

Thou ruddy stream, thou hast flowed thy fill 1 
Return to thy channel and nurture his life 
Till his destined measure of years be rife.” 

She sang the last two lines with sudden energy ; 
and when she removed her hand from the wound, 
the blood had ceased to flow. The poor Skull- 
Splitter was sleeping soundly; and his friends, 
shivering a little with mysterious fears, marched up 
and down whispering to one another. They set a 
guard of honor at the leafy couch of their wounded 
comrade; intercepted the green worms and other 
insects that kept dropping down upon him from the 


**THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS^^ IO5 

alder branches overhead, and brushed away the flies 
that would fain disturb his slumbers. They were 
all steeped to the core in old Norse heroism ; and 
they enjoyed the situation hugely. All the life 
about them was half blotted out ; they saw it but 
dimly. That light of youthful romance, which 
never was on sea or land, transformed all the com- 
mon things that met their vision into something 
strange and wonderful. They strained their ears to 
catch the meaning of the song of the birds, so that 
they might learn from them the secrets of the 
future, as Sigurd the Volsung did, after he had 
slain the dragon, Fafnir. The woods round about 
them were filled with dragons and fabulous beasts, 
whose tracks they detected with the eyes of faith ; 
and they started out every morning, during the all 
too brief vacation, on imaginary expeditions against 
imaginary monsters. 

When at the end of an hour the Skull-Splitter 
woke from his slumber, much refreshed, Witch- 
Martha bandaged his arm carefully, and Wolf-in-the 
Temple (having no golden arm - rings) tossed her, 
with magnificent superciliousness, his purse, which 
contained six cents. But she flung it back at him 
with such force that he had to dodge with more 
adroitness than dignity. 

“ I’ll get my claws into thee some day, thou fool- 
ish lad,” she said, lifting her lean vulture-like hand 
with a threatening gesture. 


I06 BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 

“ No, please don’t, Martha, I didn’t mean any. 
thing,” cried the boy, in great alarm ; “ you’ll for- 
give me, won’t you, Martha?” 

“ I’ll bid thee begone, and take thy foolish tongue 
along with thee,” she answered, in a mollified tone. 

And the Sons of the Vikings, taking the hint, 
shouldered the litter once more, and reached Skull- 
Splitter’s home in time for supper. 


III. 

The Sons of the Vikings were much troubled. 
Every heroic deed which they plotted had this little 
disadvantage, that they were in danger of going to 
jail for it. They could not steal cattle and horses, be- 
cause they did not know what to do with them when 
they had got them ; they could not sail away over 
the briny deep in search of fortune or glory, because 
they had no ships ; and sail-boats were scarcely big 
enough for daring voyages to the blooming South 
which their ancestors had ravaged. The precious 
vacation was slipping away, and as yet they had 
accomplished nothing that could at all be called 
heroic. It was while the brotherhood was lament- 
ing this fact that Wolf-in-the-Temple had a brilliant 
idea. He procured his father’s permission to invite 
his eleven companions to spend a day and a night 
at the Ronning sceter^ or mountain dairy, far up in 


*^rHE SONS OF THE VIKINGS^* 10 / 

the highlands. The only condition Mr. Ronning 
made was that they were to be accompanied by 
his man, Brumle-Knute, who was to be responsible 
for their safety. But the boys determined privately 
to make Brumle-Knute their prisoner, in case he 
showed any disposition to spoil their sport. To 
spend a day and a night in the woods, to imagine 
themselves Vikings, and behave as they imagined 
Vikings would behave, was a prospect which no one 
could contemplate without the most delightful ex- 
citement. There, far away from sheriffs and pas- 
tors and maternal supervision, they might perhaps 
find the long-desired chance of performing their he- 
roic deed. 

It was a beautiful morning early in August that 
the boys started from Strandholm, Mr. Ronning’s 
estate, accompanied by Brumle-Knute. The latter 
was a middle-aged, round-shouldered peasant, who 
had the habit of always talking to himself. To 
look at him you would have supposed that he was 
a rough and stupid fellow who would have quite 
enough to do in looking after himself. But the 
fact was, that Brumle-Knute was the best shot, the 
best climber — and altogether the most keen -eyed 
hunter in the whole valley. It was a saying that 
he could scent game so well that he never needed a 
dog ; and that he could imitate to perfection the 
call of every game bird that inhabited the mountain 
glens. Sweet-tempered he was not ; but so reliable, 


I08 BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 

skilful, and vigilant, and moreover so thorough a 
woodsman, that the boys could well afford to put 
up with his gruff temper. 

The Sons of the Vikings were all mounted on 
ponies ; and Wolf-in-the-Temple, who had been 
elected chieftain, led the troop. At his side rode 
Skull-Splitter, who was yet a trifle pale after his 
blood-letting, but brimming over with ambition to 
distinguish himself. They had all tied their trousers 
to their legs with leather thongs, in order to be 
perfectly “Old Norse;” and some of them* had 
turned their plaids and summer overcoats inside 
out, displaying the gorgeous colors of the lining. 
Loosely attached about their necks and flying in the 
wind, these could easily serve for scarlet or purple 
cloaks wrought on Syrian looms. Most of the boys 
carried also wooden swords and shields, and the 
chief had a long loor or Alpine horn. Only the 
valiant Ironbeard, whose father was a military 
man, had a real sword and a real scabbard into the 
bargain. VVolf-in-the-Temple, and Erling the Lop- 
Sided, had each an old fowling-piece ; and Brumle- 
Knute carried a double-barrelled rifle. This, to be 
sure, was not quite historically correct ; but fire- 
arms are so useful in the woods, even if they are 
not correct, that it was resolved not to notice the 
irregularity ; for there were bears in the mountains, 
besides wolves and foxes and no end of smaller 


game. 


''THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS'' lOQ 

For an hour or more the procession rode, single 
file, up the steep and rugged mountain-paths ; bu^" 
the boys were all in high spirits and enjoyed them- 
selves hugely. The mere fact that they were 
Vikings, on a daring foraging expedition into a 
neighboring kingdom, imparted a wonderful zest to 
everything they did and said. It might be foolish, 
but it was on that account none the less delightful. 
They sent out scouts to watch for the approach of 
an imaginary enemy ; they had secret pass-words 
and signs ; they swore (Viking style) by Thor’s 
hammer and by Odin’s eye. They talked appalling 
nonsense to each other with a delicious sentiment of 
its awful blood - curdling character. It was about 
noon when they reached the Strandholm sceter^ 
which consisted of three turf-thatched log-cabins or 
chdletSy surrounded by a green incl^osure of half a 
dozen acres. The wide highland plain, eight or 
ten miles long, was bounded on- the north and west 
by throngs of snow-hooded mountain peaks, which 
rose, one behind another, in glittering grandeur ; 
and in the middle of the plain there were two lakes 
or tarns, connected by a river which was milky 
white where it entered the lakes and clear as 
crystal where it escaped. 

‘‘ Now, Vikings,” cried Wolf-in-the-Temple, when 
the boys had done justice to their dinner, “ it be- 
hooves us to do valiant deeds, and to prove our- 
selves worthy of our fathers.’* 


no 


BOYHOOD IN' NOBPVAY 


“ Hear, hear,” shouted Ironbeard, who was four- 
teen years old and had a shadow of a moustache, 
“ 1 am in for great deeds, hip, hip, hurrah ! ” 

“ Hold your tongue when you hear me speak,” 
commanded the chieftain, loftily ; “ we will lie in 
wait at the ford, between the two tarns, and capture 
the travellers who pass that way. If perchance a 
princess from the neighboring kingdom pass, on the 
way to her dominions, we will hold her captive un- 
til her father, the king, comes to ransom her with 
heaps of gold in rings and fine garments and pre- 
cious weapons.” 

“ But what are we to do with her when we have 
caught her ? ” asked the Skull-Splitter, innocently. 

“We will keep her imprisoned in the empty S(^Ur 
hut,” Wolf-in-the-Temple responded. “Now, are 
you ready? We’ll leave the horses here on the 
croft, until our return.” 

The question now was to elude Brumle-Knute’s 
vigilance ; for the Sons of the Vikings had good 
reasons for fearing that he might interfere with 
their enterprise. They therefore waited until 
Brumle-knute was invited by the dairymaid to sit 
down to dinner. No sooner had the door closed 
upon his stooping figure, than they stole out 
through a hole in the fence, crept on all-fours among 
the tangled dwarf-birches and the big gray boulders, 
and following close in the track of their leader, 
reached the ford between the lakes. There they 


•^THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS'* 


in 


observed two enormous heaps of stones known as 
the Parson and the Deacon ; for it had been the 
custom from immemorial times for every traveller to 
fling a big stone as a “sacrifice” for good luck upon 
the Parson’s heap and a small stone upon the 
Deacon’s. Behind these piles of stone the boys 
hid themselves, keeping a watchful eye on the road 
and waiting for their chief’s signal to pounce upon 
unwary travellers. They lay for about fifteen min- 
utes in expectant silence, and were on the point of 
losing their patience. 

“ Look here, VVolf-in-the-Temple,” cried Erling 
the Lop-Sided, “ you may think this is fun, but I 
don’t. Let us take the raft there and go fishing. 
The tarn is simply crowded with perch and bass.” 

“ Hold your disrespectful tongue,” whispered the 
chief, warningly, “ or I’ll discipline you so you’ll re- 
member it till your dying day.” 

“ Ho, ho ! ” laughed the rebel, jeeringly ; “ big 
words and fat pork don’t stick in the throat. Wait 
till I get you alone and we shall see who’ll be dis- 
ciplined.” 

Erling had risen and was about to emerge from 
his hiding-place, when suddenly hoof-beats were 
heard, and a horse was seen approaching, carrying 
on its back a stalwart peasant lass, in whose lap a 
pretty little girl of twelve or thirteen was sitting. 
The former was clad in scarlet bodice, a black em- 
broidered skirt, and a snowy-white kerchief was 


1 1 2 BO YHOOD IN NOR WA Y 

tied about her head. Her blonde hair hiing in gold* 
en profusion down over her back and shoulders. 
The little girl was city-clad, and had a sweet and 
appealing face. She was chattering guilelessly with 
her companion, asking more questions than she 
could possibly expect to have answered. Nearer 
and nearer they came to the great stone heaps, dream- 
ing of no harm. 

“ And, Gunbjor,” the Skull-Splitter heard the 
little girl say, “you don’t really believe that there 
are trolds and fairies in the mountains, do you ? ” 

“ Them as are wiser than I am have believed 
that,” was Gunbjor’s answer ; “ but we don’t hear 
so much about the trolds nowadays as they did 
when my granny was young. Then they took 

young girls into the mountain and ” 

Here came a wild, piercing yell, as the Sons of the 
Vikings rushed forward from behind the rocks, and 
with a terrible war-whoop swooped down upon the 
road. Wolf-in-the-Temple, who led the band, seized 
the horse by the bridle, and flourishing his sword 
threateningly, addressed the frightened peasant lass. 

“ Is this, perchance, the Princess Kunigunde, the 
heir to the throne of my good friend. King Bjorn 
the Victorious ? ” he asked, with a magnificent air, 
seizing the trembling little girl by the wrist. 

“ Nay,” Gunbjor answered, as soon as she could 
find her voice, “ this is the Deacon’s Maggie, as is 
going to the scBter with me to spend Sunday.” 



rilE SONS OF THE VIKINGS RUSHED FORWARD 




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** THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS^^ 1 13 

“ She cannot proceed on her way,” said the chief- 
tain, decisively, “ she is my prisoner.” 

Gunbjor, who had been frightened out of her wits 
by the small red- and blue-cloaked men, swarming 
among the stones, taking them to be trolds or 
fairies, now gradually recovered her senses. She 
recognized in Erling the Lop-Sided the well-known 
features of the parson’s son ; and as soon as she had 
made this discovery she had no great difficulty in 
identifying the rest. “ Never you fear, pet,” she 
said to the child in her lap, “ these be bad boys as 
want to frighten us. I’ll give them a switching if 
they don’t look out.” 

“ The Princess Kunigunde is my prisoner until it 
please her noble father to ransom her for ten pounds 
of silver,” repeated Wolf-in-the-Temple, putting his 
arm about little Maggie’s waist and trying to lift 
her from the saddle. 

“ You keep yer hands off the child, or I’ll give 
you ten pounds of thrashing,” cried Gunbjor, 
angrily. 

“ She shall be treated with the respect due to her 
rank,” Wolf-in-the-Temple proceeded, loftily. “ I 
give King Bjorn the Victorious three moons in 
which to bring me the ransom.” 

“ And I’ll give you three boxes on the ear, and a 
cut with my whip, into the bargain, if you don’t let 
the horse alone, and take yer hands off the child.” 

“ Vikings ! ” cried the chief, “ lay hands on her I 
8 


r 1 4 BO YHOOD IN NOR WA Y 

Tear her from the saddle ! She has defied us ! She 
deserves no mercy.” 

With a tremendous yell the boys rushed forward, 
brandishing their swords above their heads, and 
pulled Gunbjor from the saddle. But she held on 
to her charge with a vigorous clutch, and as soon as 
her feet touched the ground she began with her dis- 
engaged hand to lay about her, with her whip, in a 
way that proved extremely unpleasant. Wolf-in- 
the-Temple, against whom her assault was especially 
directed, received some bad cuts across his face, and 
Ironbeard was driven backward into the ford, where 
he fell, full length, and rose dripping wet and morti- 
fied. Thore the Hound got a thump in his head 
from Gunbjor’s stalwart elbows, and Skull-Splitter, 
who had more courage than discretion, was pitched 
into the water with no more ceremony than if he 
had been a superfluous kitten. The fact was — I can- 
not disguise it — within five minutes the whole val- 
iant band of the Sons of the Vikings were routed 
by that terrible switch, wielded by the intrepid 
Gunbjor. When the last of her foes had bitten the 
dust, she calmly remounted her pony, and with the 
Deacon’s Maggie in her lap rode, at a leisurely pace, 
across the ford. 

“ Good-by, lads,” she said, nodding her head at 
them over her shoulder ; “ ye needn’t be afraid. I 
won’t tell on you.” 


**THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS 


II5 


IV. 

To have been routed by a woman was a terrible 
humiliation to the valiant Sons of the Vikings. 
They were silent and moody during the evening, 
and sat staring into the big bonfire on the scBter^x^^w 
with stern and melancholy features. They had 
suffered defeat in battle, and it behooved them to 
avenge it. About nine o’clock they retired into their 
bunks in the log cabin, but no sooner was Brumle- 
Knute’s rhythmic snoring perceived than Wolf-in- 
the-Temple put his head out and called to his com- 
rades to meet him in front of the house for a coun- 
cil of war. Instantly they scrambled out of their 
alcoves, pulled on their coats and trousers ; and noise- 
lessly stole out into the night. The sun was yet 
visible, but a red veil of fiery mist was drawn across 
his face ; and a magic air of fairy-tales and strange 
unreality was diffused over mountains, plains and 
lakes. The river wound like a huge, blood-red ser- 
pent through the mountain pastures, and the snow- 
hooded peaks blazed with fiery splendor. 

The boys were quite stunned at the sight of such 
magnificence, and stood for some minutes gazing at 
the landscape, before giving heed to the summons 
of the chief. 

“ Comrades,” said Wolf*in-the*Temple, solemnly, 
“ what is life without honor ” 


1 1 6 BO YHOOD IN NOR IV A Y 

There was not a soul present who could answer 
that conundrum, and after a fitting pause the chief 
was forced to answer it himself. 

“ Life without honor, comrades,” he said, severely, 
“ life — without honor is — nothing.” 

“ Hear, hear ! ” cried Ironbeard ; “ good for you, 
old man ! ” 

“ Silence ! ” thundered Wolf-in-the-Temple, “ I 
must beg the gentlemen to observe the proprieties.” 

This tremendous phrase rarely failed to restore 
order, and the flippant Ironbeard was duly rebuked 
by the glances of displeasure which met him on all 
sides. But in the meanwhile the chief had lost the 
thread of his speech and could not recover it. 
“ Vikings,” he resumed, clearing his throat vehe- 
mently, “ we have been — that is to say — we have 
sustained ” 

“A thrashing,” supplied the innocent Skull- 
Splitter. 

But the awful stare which was fixed upon him 
convinced him that he had made a mistake ; and he 
shrunk into an abashed silence. “ We must do some- 
thing to retrieve our honor,” continued the chief, 
earnestly ; “ we must — take steps — to — to get upon 
our legs again,” he finished, blushing with embar- 
rassment. 

“ I would suggest that we get upon our legs first, 
and take the steps afterward,” remarked the flippant 
Ironbeard, with a sly wink at Thore the Hound. 


^^THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS^' 

The chief held it to be beneath his dignity to no- 
tice this interruption, and after having gazed for 
a while in silence at the blood-red mountain peaks, 
he continued, more at his ease : 

“ 1 propose, comrades, that we go on a bear hunt. 
Then, when we return with a bear-skin or two, our 
honor will be all right ; no one will dare laugh at 
us. The brave boy-hunters will be the admiration 
and pride of the whole valley.” 

“ But Brummle-Knute,” observed the Skull- 
Splitter ; “ do you think he will allow us to go bear- 
hunting ?” 

“ What do we care whether he allows us or not ? ” 
cried Wolf-in-the-Temple, scornfully ; “ he sleeps 
like a log ; and I propose that we tie his hands and 
feet before we start.” 

This suggestion met with enthusiastic approval, 
and all the boys laughed heartily at the idea of 
Brumle-Knute waking up and finding himself tied 
with ropes, like a calf that is carried to market. 

“ Now, comrades,” commanded the chief, with a 
flourish of his sword, “ get to bed quickly. I’ll call 
you at four o’clock ; we’ll then start to chase the 
monarch of the mountains.” 

The Sons of the Vikings scrambled into their 
bunks with great despatch ; and though their beds 
consisted of pine twigs, covered with a coarse sheet, 
and a bag of straw for a pillow, they fell asleep with- 
out rocking, and slept more soundly than if they 


Il8 BOYHOOD IM NORWAY 

had rested on silken bolsters filled with eiderdown. 
Wolf-in-the-Temple was as good as his word, and 
waked them promptly at four o’clock ; and their first 
task, after having filled their knapsacks with provi- 
sions, was to tie Brumle-Knute’s hands and feet with 
the most cunning slip - knots, which would tight- 
en more, the more he struggled to unloose them. 
Ironbeard, who had served a year before the mast, 
was the contriver of this daring enterprise ; and he 
did it so cleverly that Brumle-Knute never suspect- 
ed that his liberty was being interfered with. He 
snorted a little and rubbed imaginary cobwebs from 
his face ; but soon lapsed again into a deep, snoring 
unconsciousness. 

The faces of the Sons of the Vikings grew very 
serious as they started out on this dangerous expedi- 
tion. There was more than one of them who would 
not have objected to remaining at home, but who 
feared to incur the charge of cowardice if he opposed 
the wishes of the rest. Wolf-in-the-Temple walked 
at the head of the column, as they hastened with 
stealthy tread out of the scBter inclosure, and steered 
their course toward the dense pine forest, the tops 
of which were visible toward the east, where the 
mountain sloped toward the valley. He carried his 
fowling-piece, loaded with shot, in his right hand, 
and a powder-horn and other equipments for the 
chase were flung across his shoulder. Erling the 
Lop-Sided was similarly armed, and Ironbeard, glo- 


^*THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS'* 1 19 

rying in a real sword, unsheathed it every minute 
and let it flash in the sun. It was a great consola- 
tion to the rest of the Vikings to see these for- 
midable weapons; for they were not wise enough 
to know that grown-up bears are not killed with 
shot, and that a fowling-piece is a good deal more 
dangerous than no weapon at all, in the hands of 
an inexperienced hunter. 

The sun, who had exchanged his flaming robe de 
nuit for the rosy colors of morning, was now shoot- 
ing his bright shafts of light across the mountain 
plain, and cheering the hearts of the Sons of the 
Vikings. The air was fresh and cool ; and it seemed 
a luxury to breathe it. It entered the lungs in a 
pure, vivifying stream like an elixir of life, and sent 
the blood dancing through the veins. It was im- 
possible to mope in such air ; and Ironbeard inter- 
preted the general mood when he struck up the 
tune : 

** We wander with joy on the far mountain path, 

We follow the star that will guide us ; ” 

but before he had finished the third verse, it occur- 
red to the chief that they were bear-hunters, and 
that it was very unsportsmanlike behavior to sing 
on the chase. For all that they were all very jolly, 
throbbing with excitement at the thought of the 
adventures which they were about to encounter; 
and concealing a latent spark of fear under an excess 


120 BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 

of bravado. At the end of an hour’s march they 
had reached the pine forest ; and as they were all 
ravenously hungry they sat down upon the stones, 
where a clear mountain brook ran down the slope, 
and unpacked their provisions. Wolf-in-the-Temple 
had just helped himself, in old Norse fashion, to a 
slice of smoked ham, having slashed a piece off at 
random with his knife, when Erling the Lop-Sided 
observed that that ham had a very curious odor. 
Everyone had to test its smell ; and they all agreed 
that it did have a singular flavor, though its taste 
was irreproachable. 

“ It smells like a menagerie,” said the Skull- 
Splitter, as he handed it to Thore the Hound. 

“ But the bread and the biscuit smell just the 
same,” said Thore the Hound ; “ in fact, it is the air 
that smells like a menagerie.” 

“ Boys,” cried Wolf-in-the-Temple, “ do you see 
that track in the mud ? ” 

“Yes; it is the track of a barefooted man,” sug- 
gested the innocent Skull-Splitter. 

Ironbeard and Erling the Lop-Sided flung them- 
selves down among the stones and investigated the 
tracks; and they were no longer in doubt as to 
where the pungent wild odor came from, which they 
had attributed to the ham. 

“ Boys,” said Erling, looking up with an excited 
face, “ a she-bear with one or two cubs has been 
here within a few minutes.” 


**TNE SONS OF THE VIKINGS^^ 1 21 

“ This is her drinking-place,’’ said Ironbeard ; 
“ the tracks are many and well-worn ; if she hasn’t 
been here this morning, she is sure to come before 
long.” 

“We are in luck indeed,” Wolf-in-the-Temple 
observed, coolly ; “ we needn’t go far for our bear. 
He will be coming for us.” 

At that moment the note of an Alpine horn was 
heard ; but it was impossible to determine how far 
it was away; for the echo took up the note and 
flung it back and forth with clear and strong re- 
verberations from mountain to mountain. 

“ It is Brumle-Knute who is calling us,” said 
Thore the Hound. “ The dairymaid must have re- 
leased him. Shall we answer ? ” 

“ Never,” cried the chief, proudly ; “ I forbid you 
to answer. Here we have our heroic deed in sight, 
and I want no one to spoil it. If there is a coward 
among us, let him take to his heels ; no one shall 
detain him.” 

There were perhaps several who would have liked 
to accept the invitation ; but no one did. Skull- 
Splitter, by way of diversion, plumped backward 
into the brook, and sat down in the cool pool up to 
his waist. But nobody laughed at his mishap ; be- 
cause they had their minds full of more serious 
thoughts. Wolf-in-the-Temple, who had climbed 
up on a big moss-grown boulder, stood, gun in hand, 
and peered in among the bushes. 


122 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


“ Boys,” he whispered, “ drop down on your 
bellies — quick.” 

All, crowding behind a rock, obeyed, pushing 
themselves into position with hands and feet. With 
wildly beating hearts the Vikings gazed up among 
the gray wilderness of stone and underbrush, and 
first one, then another, caught sight of something 
brown and hairy that came toddling down toward 
them, now rolling like a ball of yarn, now turning a 
somersault, and now again pegging industriously 
along on four clumsy paws. It was the prettiest 
little bear cub that ever woke on its mossy lair in 
the woods. Now it came shuffling down in a boozy 
way to take its morning bath. It seemed but half 
awake; and Skull- Splitter imagined that it was a 
trifle cross, because its mother had waked it too 
early. Evidently it had made no toilet as yet, for 
bits of moss were sticking in its hair ; and it yawned 
once or twice, and shook its head disgustedly. 
Skull-Splitter knew so well that feeling and could 
sympathize with the poor young cub. But Wolf- 
in-the-Temple, who watched it no less intently, was 
filled with quite different emotions. Here was his 
heroic deed, for which he had hungered so long. 
To shoot a bear — that was a deed worthy of a Norse- 
man. One step more — then two — and then — up 
rose the bear cub on its hind legs and rubbed its 
eyes with its paws. Now he had a clean shot — 
now or never; and pulling the trigger Wolf-in-the- 


'^THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS** 123 

Temple blazed away and sent a handful of shot into 
the carcass of the poor little bear. Up jumped all 
the Sons of the Vikings from behind their stones, 
and, with a shout of triumph, ran up the path to 
where the cub was lying. It had rolled itself up 
into a brown ball, and whimpered like a child in 
pain. But at that very moment there came an omi- 
nous growl out of the underbrush, and a crackling 
and creaking of branches was heard which made the 
hearts of the boys stand still. 

“Erling,” cried Wolf-in-the-Temple, “hand me 
your gun, and load mine for me as quick as you 
can.” 

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when 
the head of a big brown she-bear became visible 
among the bushes. She paused in the path, where 
her cub was lying, turned him over with her paw, 
licked his face, grumbled with a low soothing tone, 
snuffed him all over and rubbed her nose against his 
snout. But unwarily she must have touched some 
sore spot ; for the cub gave a sharp yelp of pain and 
writhed and whimpered as he looked up into his 
mother’s eyes, clumsily returning her caresses. The 
boys, half emerged from their hiding-places, stood 
watching this demonstration of affection not with- 
out sympathy ; and Skull-Splittter, for one, heartily 
wished that the chief had not wounded the little 
bear. Quite ignorant as he was of the nature of 
bears, he allowed his compassion to get the better of 


124 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


his judgment. It seemed such a pity that the poor 
little beast should lie there and suffer with one eye 
put out and forty or fifty bits of lead distributed 
through its body. It would be much more merciful 
to put it out of its misery altogether. And accord- 
ingly when Erling the Lop-Sided handed him his 
gun to pass on to the chief, Skull-Splitter started 
forward, flung the gun to his cheek, and blazed away 
at the little bear once more, entirely heedless of con- 
sequences. It was a random, unskilful shot, which 
was about equally shared by the cub and its mother. 
And the latter was not in a mood to be trifled with. 
With an angry roar she rose on her hind legs and 
advanced against the unhappy Skull-Splitter with 
two uplifted paws. In another moment she would 
give him one of her vigorous “ left-handers,” which 
would probably pacify him forever. Ironbeard gave 
a scream of terror and Thore the Hound broke down 
an alder-sapling in his excitement. But Wolf-in- 
the-Temple, remembering that he had sworn foster- 
brotherhood with this brave and foolish little lad, 
thought that now was the time to show his heroism. 
Here it was no longer play, but dead earnest. Down 
he leaped from his rock, and just as the she-bear 
was within a foot of the Skull-Splitter, he dealt her a 
blow in the head with the butt end of his gun which 
made the sparks dance before her eyes. She turned 
suddenly toward her new assailant, growling savage- 
ly, and scratched her ear with her paw. And Skull* 


''THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS^* 125 

Splitter who had slipped on the pine-needles and 
fallen, scrambled to his feet again, leaving his gun 
on the ground, and with a few aimless steps tumbled 
once more into the brook. Ironbeard, seeing that 
he was being outdone by his chief, was quick to seize 
the gun, and rushing forward dealt the she-bear an- 
other blow, which, instead of disabling her, only ex- 
asperated her further. She glared with her small 
bloodshot eyes now at the one, now at the other 
boy, as if in doubt which she would tackle first. It 
was an awful moment ; one or the other might have 
saved himself by flight, but each was determined to 
stand his ground. Vikings could die, but never 
flee. With a furious growl the she-bear started 
toward her last assailant, lifting her terrible paw. 
Ironbeard backed a few steps, pointing his gun 
before him; and with benumbing force the paw 
descended upon the gun-barrel, striking it out of his 
hands. 

It seemed all of a sudden to the boy as if his arms 
were asleep up to the shoulders ; he had a stinging 
sensation in his flesh and a humming in his ears, 
which made him fear that his last hour had come. 
If the bear renewed the attack now he was utterly 
defenceless. He was not exactly afraid, but he was 
numb all over. It seemed to matter little what 
became of him. 

But now a strange thing happened. To his un- 
utterable astonishment he saw the she-bear drop 


126 


B O Y HO OD IN NOR WA Y 


down on all-fours and vent her rage on the gun, 
which, in a trice, was bent and broken into a dozen 
fragments. But in this diversion she was interrupted 
by Wolf-in-the-Temple, who hammered away again 
at her head with the heavy end of his weapon. 
Again she rose, and presented two rows of white 
teeth which looked as if they meant business. It 
was the chief’s turn now to meet his fate ; and it 
was the more serious because his helper was disarmed 
and could give him no assistance. With a wildly 
thumping heart he raised the butt end of his gun 
and dashed forward, when as by a miracle a shot 
was heard — a sharp, loud shot that rumbled away 
with manifold reverberations among the mountains. 
In the same instant the huge brown bear tumbled 
forward, rolled over, with a gasping growl, and was 
dead. 

“ O Brumle-Knute ! Brumle-Knute ! ” yelled the 
boys in joyous chorus, as they saw their rescuer 
coming forward from behind the rocks, “ how did 
you find us ?” 

“ I heard yer shots and I saw yer tracks,” said 
Brumle-Knute, dryly; “but when ye go bear-hunt- 
ing another time ye had better load with bullets 
instead of bird-shot.” 

“ But, Brumle-Knute, we only wanted to shoot 
the little bear,” protested Wolf-in-the-Temple. 

“ That may be,” Brumle-Knute replied ; “but the 
big bears, they are a curiously unreasonable lot ; 



TO THE RESCUE 




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**THE SONS OF THE VIKINGS 


127 


they are apt to get mad when you fire at their little 
ones. Next time you must recollect to take the 
big bear into account.” 

I need not tell you that the Sons of the Vikings 
became great heroes when the rumor of their bear 
hunt was noised abroad through the valley. But, 
for all that, they determined to disband their 
brotherhood. Wolf-in-the-Temple expressed the 
sentiment of all when, at their last meeting, he 
made a speech, in which these words occurred : 

“Brothers, the world isn’t quite the same now as 
it was in the days when our Viking forefathers 
spread the terror of their name through the South. 
We are not so strong as they were, nor so hardy. 
When we mingle blood, we have to send for a 
surgeon. If we steal princesses we may go to jail 
for it — or — or — well — never mind — what else may 
happen. Heroism isn’t appreciated as once it was 
in this country; and I, for one, won’t try to be 
a hero any more. I resign my chieftainship now, 
when I can do it with credit. Let us all make our 
bows of adieu as bear hunters; and if we don’t do 
anything more in the heroic line it is not because 
we can’t, but because we won’t.” 


PAUL JESPERSEN’S MASQUERADE 


There was great excitement in the little Norse 
town, Bumlebro, because there was going to be a 
masquerade. Everybody was busy inventing the 
character which he was to represent, and the cos- 
tume in which he was to represent it. 

Miss Amelia Norbeck, the apothecary’s daughter, 
had intended to be Marie Antoinette, but had to 
give it up because the silk stockings were too dear, 
although she had already procured the beauty- 
patches and the powdered wig. 

Miss Arctander, the judge’s daughter, was to be 
Night, in black tulle, spangled with silver stars, and 
Miss Hanna Broby was to be Morning, in white 
tulle and pink roses. 

There had never been a masquerade in Bumlebro, 
and there would not have been one now, if it had 
not been for the enterprise of young Arctander and 
young Norbeck, who had just returned from the 
military academy in the capital, and were anxious 
to exhibit themselves to the young girls in their 
glory. 

Of course, they could not afford to be exclusive. 


PAUL JESPERSEN^S MASQUERADE 1 29 

for there were but twenty or thirty families in the 
town that laid any claims to gentility, and they had 
all to be invited in order to fill the hall and pay the 
bills. Thus it came to pass that Paul Jespersen, 
the book-keeper in the fish-exporting firm of Broby 
& Larsen, received a card, although, to be sure, 
there had been a long debate in the committee as 
to where the line should be drawn. 

Paul Jespersen was uncommonly elated when 
he read the invitation, which was written on a gilt- 
edged card, requesting the pleasure of Mr. Jesper- 
sen’s company at a bal masque Tuesday, January 3 d, 
in the Association Hall. 

“ The pleasure of his company 1 ” 

Think of it ! He felt so flattered that he blushed 
to the tips of his ears. It must have been Miss 
Clara Broby who had induced them to be so polite 
to him, for those insolent cadets, who only nodded 
patronizingly to him in response to his deferential 
greeting, would never have asked for “ the pleasure 
of his company.” 

Having satisfied himself on this point, Paul went 
to call upon Miss Clara in the evening, in order to 
pay her some compliment and consult her in regard 
to his costume ; but Miss Clara, as it happened, was 
much more interested in her own costume than in 
that of Mr. Jespersen, and offered no useful sugges- 
tions. 

“ What character would you advise me to select, 

Q 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


130 

Mr. Jespersen ?” she inquired, sweetly. “ My sister 
Hanna, you know, is going to be Mornings so I can’t 
be that, and it seems to me Morning would have 
suited me just lovely.” 

“ Go as Beauty, '' suggested Mr. Jespersen, blush- 
ing at the thought of his audacity. 

“ So I will, Mr. Jespersen,” she answered, laugh- 
ing, “ if you will go as the Beasts 

Paul, being a simple-hearted fellow, failed to see 
any sarcasm in this, but interpreted it rather as a 
hint that Miss Clara desired his escort, as Beauty, 
of course, only would be recognizable in her proper 
character by the presence of the Beast, 

“ I shall be delighted. Miss Clara,” he said, beam- 
ing with pleasure. “ If you will be my Beauty, I’ll 
be your Beasts 

Miss Clara did not know exactly how to take this, 
and was rather absent-minded during the rest of the 
interview. She had been chaffing Mr. Jespersen, 
of course, but she did not wish to be absolutely rude 
to him, because he was her father’s employee, and, 
as she often heard her father say, a very valuable 
and trustworthy young man. 

When Paul got home he began at once to ponder 
upon his character as Beast, and particularly as Miss 
Clara’s Beast. It occurred to him that his uncle, 
the furrier, had an enormous bear-skin, with head, 
eyes, claws, and all that was necessary, and without 
delay he went to try it oh. 


PAUL JESPERSEN’S MASQUERADE I3I 

His uncle, feeling that this event was somehow to 
redound to the credit of the family, agreed to make 
the necessary alterations at a trifling cost, and when 
the night of the masquerade arrived, Paul was so 
startled at his appearance that he would have run 
away from himself if such a thing had been pos- 
sible. He had never imagined that he would make 
such a sucessful Beast. 

By an ingenious contrivance with a string, which 
he pulled with his hand, he was able to move his 
lower jaw, which, with its red tongue and terrible 
teeth, presented an awful appearance. By patching 
the skin a little behind, his head was made to fit 
comfortably into the bear’s head, and his mild blue 
eyes looked out of the holes from which the bear’s 
eyes had been removed. The skin was laced with 
thin leather thongs from the neck down, but the 
long, shaggy fur made the lacing invisible. 

Paul Jespersen practised ursine behavior before 
the looking-glass for about half an hour. Then, 
being uncomfortably warm, he started down-stairs, 
and determined to walk to the Association Hall. 
He chuckled to himself at the thought of the sen- 
sation he would make, if he should happen to meet 
anybody on the road. 

Having never attended a masquerade before, he 
did not know that dressing-rooms were provided for 
the maskers, and, being averse to needless expendi- 
ture, he would as soon have thought of flying as of 


132 


B O YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 


taking a carriage. There was, in fact, but one car- 
riage on runners in the town, and that was already 
engaged by half a dozen parties. 

The moon was shining faintly upon the snow, 
and there was a sharp frost in the air when Paul 
Jespersen put his hairy head out of the street-door 
and reconnoitred the territory. 

There was not a soul to be seen, except an old 
beggar woman who was hobbling along, supporting 
herself with two sticks. Paul darted, as quickly as 
his unwieldly bulk would allow, into the middle of 
the street. He enjoyed intensely the fun of walk- 
ing abroad in such a monstrous guise. He contem- 
plated with boyish satisfaction his shadow which 
stretched, long and black and horrible, across the 
snow. 

It was a bit slippery, and he had to manoeuvre 
carefully in order to keep right side up. Presently 
he caught up with the beggar woman. 

“ Good-evening ! ” he said. 

The old woman turned about, stared at him hor- 
ror-stricken ; then, as soon as she had collected her 
senses, took to her heels, yelling at the top of her 
voice. A big mastiff, who had just been let loose 
for the night, began to bark angrily in a back yard, 
and a dozen comrades responded from other yards, 
and came bounding into the street. 

“ Hello ! ” thought Paul Jespersen. “ Now look 
out for trouble.” 


PAUL fESPERSEN'S MASQUERADE 1 33 

He felt anything but hilarious when he saw the 
pack of angry dogs dancing and leaping about him, 
barking in a wildly discordant chorus. 

“ Why, Hector, you fool, don’t you know me ? ” 
he said, coaxingly, to the judge s mastiff. “ And 
you, Sultan, old man ! You ought to be ashamed 
of yourself ! Here, Caro, that’s a good fellow ! 
Come, now, don’t excite yourself ! ” 

But Hector, Sultan, and Caro were all proof 
against such blandishments, and as for Bismarck, the 
apothecary’s collie, he grew every moment more 
furious, and showed his teeth in a very uncomforta- 
ble fashion. 

To defend one’s self was not to be thought of, for 
what defence is possible to a sham bear against a 
dozen genuine dogs ? Paul could use neither his 
teeth nor his claws to any purpose, while the dogs 
could use theirs, as he presently discovered, with 
excellent effect. 

He had just concluded to seek safety in flight, 
when suddenly he felt a bite in his left calf, and saw 
the brute Bismarck tug away at his leg as if it had 
been a mutton-chop. He had scarcely recovered 
from this surprise when he heard a sharp report, and 
a bullet whizzed away over his head, after having 
neatly put a hole through the right ear. Paul con- 
cluded, with reason, that things were getting serious. 

If he could only get hold of that blockhead, the 
judge’s groom, who was violating the law about fire- 


134 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


arms, he would give him an exhibition in athletics 
which he would not soon forget ; but, being for the 
moment deprived of this pleasure, he knew of noth- 
ing better to do than to dodge through the nearest 
street-door, and implore the protection of the very 
first individual he might meet. 

It so happened that Paul selected the house of 
two middle-aged milliners for this experiment. 

Jemina and Malla Hansen were just seated at the 
table drinking tea with their one constant visitor, 
the post-office clerk, Mathias, when, all of a sudden, 
they heard a tremendous racket in the hall, and the 
furious barking of dogs. 

With a scream of fright, the two old maids 
jumped up, dropping their precious tea-cups, and 
old Mathias, who had tipped his chair a little back- 
ward, lost his balance, and pointed his heels toward 
the ceiling. Before he had time to pick himself up 
the door was burst open and a great hairy monster 
sprang into the room. 

“ Mercy upon us ! ” cried Jemina. “ It is the devil ! ” 

But now came the worst of it all. The bear put 
his paw on his heart, and with the politest bow in 
the world, remarked : 

“ Pardon me, ladies, if I intrude.” 

He had meant to say more, but his audience had 
vanished ; only the flying tails of Mathias’s coat 
were seen, as he slammed the door on them, in his 
precipitate flight. 


PAUL JESFERSEN'S MASQUERADE 13 $ 

Police ! police ! ” someone shouted out of the 
window of the adjoining room. 

Police! Now, with all due respect for the offi- 
cers of the law, Paul Jespersenhad no desire to meet 
them at the present moment. To be hauled up at 
the station-house and fined for street disorder — 
nay, perhaps be locked up for the night, if, as was 
more than likely, the captain of police was at the 
masquerade, was not at all to Paul’s taste. Any- 
thing rather than that I He would be the laughing- 
stock of the whole town if, after his elaborate ef- 
forts, he were to pass the night in a cell, instead of 
dancing with Miss Clara Broby. 

Hearing the cry for police repeated, Paul looked 
about him for some means of escape. It occurred 
to him that he had seen a ladder in the hall leading 
up to the loft. There he could easily hide himself 
until the crowd had dispersed. 

Without further reflection, he rushed out through 
the door by which he had entered, climbed the lad- 
der, thrust open a trap-door, and, to his astonish- 
ment, found himself under the wintry sky. 

The roof sloped steeply, and he had to balance 
carefully in order to avoid sliding down into the 
midst of the noisy mob of dogs and street-boys 
who were laying siege to the door. 

With the utmost caution he crawled along the 
roof-tree, trembling lest he should be discovered by 
some lynx-eyed villain in the throng of his pursuers. 


136 BOYHOOD m NORWAY 

Happily, the broad brick chimney afforded him 
some shelter, of which he was quick to take ad- 
vantage. Rolling himself up into the smallest pos- 
sible compass, he sat for a long time crouching be- 
hind the chimney ; while the police were rum- 
maging under the beds and in the closets of the 
house, in the hope of finding him. 

He had, of course, carefully closed the trap-door 
by which he had reached the comparative safety of 
his present position ; and he could not help chuck- 
ling to himself at the thought of having outwitted 
the officers of the law. 

The crowd outside, after having made night hide- 
ous by their whoops and yells, began, at the end of 
an hour, to grow weary ; and the dogs being denied 
entrance to the house, concluded that they had no 
further business there, and slunk off to their re- 
spective kennels. 

The people, too, scattered, and only a few patient 
loiterers hung about the street door, hoping for 
fresh developments. It seemed useless to Paul to 
wait until these provoking fellows should take 
themselves away. They were obviously prepared to 
make a night of it, and time was no object to 
them. 

It was then that Paul, in his despair, resolved 
upon a daring stratagem. Mr. Broby’s house was 
in the same block as that of the Misses Hansen, 
only it was at the other end of the block. By 


PAUL JESPERSEN'S MASQUERADE 137 

creeping along the roof-trees of the houses, which, 
happily, differed but slightly in height, he could 
reach the Broby house, where, no doubt. Miss Clara 
was now waiting for him, full of impatience. 

He did not deliberate long before testing the 
practicability of this plan. The tanner Thoresen’s 
house was reached without accident, although he 
barely escaped being detected by a small boy who 
was amusing himself throwing snow-balls at the 
chimney. It was a slow and wearisome mode of 
locomotion — pushing himself forward on his belly ; 
but, as long as the streets were deserted, it was a 
pretty safe one. 

He gave a start whenever he heard a dog bark ; 
for the echoes of the ear-splitting concert they had 
given him were yet ringing in his brain. 

It was no joke being a bear, he thought, and if he 
had suspected that it was such a serious business, he 
would not so rashly have undertaken it. But now 
there was no way of getting out of it ; for he had 
nothing on but his underclothes under the bear-skin. 

At last he reached the Broby house, and drew a 
sigh of relief at the thought that he was now at the 
end of his journey. 

He looked about him for a trap-door by which he 
could descend into the interior, but could find none. 
There was an inch of snow on the roof, glazed with 
frost : and if there was a trap-door, it was securely 
hidden. 


138 BOYHOOD IN NOB WAY 

To jump or slide down was out of the question, 
for he would, in that case, risk breaking his neck. 
If he cried for help, the groom, who was always 
ready with his gun, might take a fancy to shoot at 
him ; and that would be still more unpleasant. It 
was a most embarrassing situation. 

Paul’s eyes fell upon a chimney ; and the thought 
flashed through his head that there was the solution 
of the difficulty. He observed that no smoke was 
coming out of it, so that he would run no risk of 
being converted into smoked ham during the 
descent. 

He looked down through the long, black tunnel. 
It was a great, spacious, old-fashioned chimney, and 
abundantly wide enough for his purpose. 

A pleasant sound of laughter and merry voices 
came to him from the kitchen below. It was evi- 
dent the girls were having a frolic. So, without 
further ado, Paul Jespersen stuffed his great hairy 
bulk into the chimney and proceeded to let himself 
down. 

There were notches and iron rings in the brick 
wall, evidently put there for the convenience of the 
chimney-sweeps; and he found his task easier 
than he had anticipated. The soot, to be sure, 
blinded his eyes, but where there was nothing to be 
seen, that was no serious disadvantage. 

In fact, everything was going as smoothly as pos- 
sible, when suddenly he heard a girl’s voice cry out : 



PAUL COMES DOWN THE CHIMNEY. 






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PAUL JESPERSEN'S MASQUERADE 139 

“ Gracious goodness ! what is that in the chim- 
ney ? ” 

“ Probably the chimney-sweep,” a man’s voice 
answered. 

“ Chimney-sweep at this time of night ! ” 

Paul, bracing himself against the walls, looked 
down and saw a cluster of anxious faces all gazing 
up toward him. A candle which one of the girls 
held in her hand showed him that the distance 
down to the hearth was but short ; so, to make an 
end of their uncertainy, he dropped himself down — 
quietly, as he thought, but by the force of his fall 
blowing the ashes about in all directions. 

A chorus of terrified screams greeted him. One 
girl fainted, one leaped up on a table, and the rest 
made for the door. 

And there sat poor Paul, in the ashes on the 
hearth, utterly bewildered by the consternation he 
had occasioned. He picked himself up by and by, 
rubbed the soot out of his eyes with the backs of his 
paws, and crawled out upon the floor. 

He had just managed to raise himself upon his 
hind-legs, when an awful apparition became visi- 
ble in the door, holding a candle. It was now 
Paul’s turn to be frightened. The person who 
stood before him bore a close resemblance to the 
devil. 

“ What is all this racket about ? ” he cried, in a 
tone of authority. 


140 


BOYHOOD IN- NOB IV AY 


Paul felt instantly relieved, for the voice was that 
of his revered chief, Mr. Broby, who, he now recol- 
lected, was to figure at the masquerade as Mephis- 
topheles. Behind him peeped forth the faces of his 
two daughters, one as Morning and the other as 
Spring, 

“ May I ask what is the cause of this unseemly 
noise?” repeated Mr. Broby, advancing to the mid- 
dle of the room. The light of his candle now fell 
upon the huge bear whom, after a slight start, he 
recognized as a masker. 

“ Excuse me, Mr. Broby,” said Paul, “ but Miss 
Clara did me the honor ” 

“ Oh yes, papa,” Miss Clara interrupted him, 
stepping forth in all her glory of tulle and flowers ; 
‘‘ it is Paul Jespersen, who was going to be my 
BeastP 

“ And it is you who have frightened my servants 
half out of their wits, Jespersen ? ” said Mr. Broby, 
laughing. 

He tumbled down through the chimney, sir,” 
declared the cook, who had half-recovered from her 
fright. 

“ Well,” said Mr. Broby, with another laugh, “ I 
admit that was a trifle unconventional. Next 
time you call, Jespersen, you must come through 
the door.” 

He thought Jespersen had chosen to play a prac- 
tical joke on the servants, and, though he did not 


PAUL JESPERSEN’S MASQUERADE 1 41 

exactly like it, he was in no mood for scolding. 
After having been carefully brushed and rolled in 
the snow, Paul offered his escort to Miss Clara; 
and she had not the heart to tell him that she was 
not at all Beauty, but Spring, And Paul was not 
enough of an expert to know the difference. 


LADY CLARE 


THE STORY OF A HORSE 

The king was dead, and among the many things 
he left behind him which his successor had no 
use for were a lot of fancy horses. There were 
long-barrelled English hunters, all legs and neck ; 
there were Kentucky racers, graceful, swift, and 
strong ; and two Arabian steeds, which had been 
presented to his late majesty by the Sultan of Tur- 
key. To see the beautiful beasts prancing and 
plunging, as they were being led through the streets 
by grooms in the royal livery, was enough to make 
the blood dance in the veins of any lover of horse- 
flesh. And to think that they were being led ig- 
nominiously to the auction mart to be sold under 
the hammer — knocked down to the highest bidder ! 
It was a sin and a shame surely ! And they seemed 
to feel it themselves; and that was the reason 
they acted so obstreperously, sometimes lifting the 
grooms off their feet as they reared and snorted 
and struck sparks with their steel-shod hoofs from 
the stone pavement. 


LADY CLADE 


143 


Among the crowd of schoolboys who followed 
the equine procession, shrieking and yelling with 
glee and exciting the horses by their wanton 
screams, was a handsome lad of fourteen, named 
Erik Carstens. He had fixed his eyes admiringly 
on a coal-black, four-year-old mare, a mere colt, 
which brought up the rear of the procession. How 
exquisitely she was fashioned ! How she danced 
over the ground with a light mazurka step, as if 
she were shod with gutta-percha and not with iron ! 
And then she had a head so daintily shaped, small 
and spirited, that it was a joy to look at her. Erik, 
who, in spite of his youth, was not a bad judge of 
a horse, felt his heart beat like a trip-hammer, and 
a mighty yearning took possession of him to be- 
come the owner of that mare. Though he knew it 
was time for dinner he could not tear himself away, 
but followed the procession up one street and down 
another, until it stopped at the horse market. 
There a lot of jockeys and coarse- looking dealers 
were on hand ; and an opportunity was afforded 
them to try the horses before the auction began. 
They forced open the mouths of the beautiful ani- 
mals, examined their teeth, prodded them with 
whips to see if they were gentle, and poked them 
with their fingers or canes. But when a loutish fel- 
low, in a brown corduroy suit, indulged in that 
kind of behavior toward the black mare she gave a 
resentful whinny and without further ado grabbed 


144 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


him with her teeth by the coat collar, lifted him up 
and shook him as if he had been a bag of straw. 
Then she dropped him in the mud, and raised her 
dainty head with an air as if to say that she held 
him to be beneath contempt. The fellow, how- 
ever, was not inclined to put up with that kind 
of treatment. With a volley of oaths he sprang up 
and would have struck the mare in the mouth with 
his clinched fist, if Erik had not darted forward and 
warded off the blow. 

“ How dare you strike that beautiful creature ? ” 
he cried, indignantly. 

“ Hold your jaw, you gosling, or 1*11 hit you 
instead,” retorted the man. 

But by that time one of the royal grooms had 
made his appearance and the brute did not dare 
carry out his threat. While the groom strove to 
quiet the mare, a great tumult arose in some other 
part of the market-place. There was a whinnying, 
plunging, rearing, and screaming, as if the whole 
field had gone mad. The black mare joined in the 
concert, and stood with her ears pricked up and 
her head raised in an attitude of panicky expecta- 
tion. Quite fearlessly Erik walked up to her, 
patted her on the neck and spoke soothingly to 
her. 

“ Look out,** yelled the groom, “ or she’ll tram- 
ple you to jelly ! ** 

But instead of that, the mare rubbed her soft 


LADY CLARE 


145 


nose against the boy’s cheek, with a low, friendly 
neighing, as if she wished to thank him for his gal- 
lant conduct. And at that moment Erik’s heart 
went out to that dumb creature with an affection 
which he had never felt toward any living thing 
before. He determined, whatever might happen, 
to bid on her and to buy her, whatever she might 
prove to be worth. He knew he had a few thou- 
sand dollars in the bank — his inheritance from his 
mother, who had died when he was a baby — and 
he might, perhaps, be able to persuade his father 
to sanction the purchase. At any rate, he would 
have some time to invent ways and means ; for 
his father, Captain Carstens, was now away on the 
great annual drill, and would not return for some 
weeks. 

As a mere matter of form, he resolved to try the 
mare before bidding on her; and slipping a coin 
into the groom’s hand he asked for a saddle. It 
turned out, however, that all the saddles were in 
use, and Erik had no choice but to mount bare- 
back. 

“ Ride her on the snaffle. She won’t stand the 
curb,” shouted the groom, as the mare, after plung- 
ing to the right and to the left, darted through 
the gate to the track, and, after kicking up a vast 
deal of tan-bark, sped like a bullet down the race- 
course. 

“ Good gracious, how recklessly that boy rides I ” 

lO 


146 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


one jockey observed to another ; “ but he has got a 
good grip with his knees all the same.” 

“Yes, he sits like a daisy,” the second replied, 
critically ; “ but mind my word. Lady Clare will 
throw him yet. She never could stand anybody 
but the princess on her back : and that was the rea- 
son her Royal Highness was so fond of her. Mother 
of Moses, won’t there be a grand rumpus when she 
comes back again and finds Lady Clare gone ! I 
should not like to be in the shoes of the man who 
has ordered Lady Clare under the hammer.” 

“ But look at the lad ! I told you Lady Clare 
wouldn’t stand no manner of nonsense from boys.” 

“ She is kicking like a Trojan ! She’ll make hash 
of him if he loses his seat.” 

“ Yes, but he sticks like a burr. That’s a jewel 
of a lad, I tell ye. He ought to have been a 
jockey.” 

Up the track came Lady Clare, black as the ace 
of spades, acting like the Old Harry. Something 
had displeased her, obviously, and she held Erik 
responsible for it. Possibly she had just waked up 
to the fact that she, who had been the pet of a 
princess, was now being ridden by an ordinary com- 
moner. At all events, she had made up her mind 
to get rid of the commoner without further cere- 
mony. Putting her fine ears back and dilating her 
nostrils, she suddenly gave a snort and a whisk 
with her tail, and up went her heels toward the 


LADY CLARE 


147 


eternal stars — that is, if there had been any stars 
visible just then. Everybody’s heart stuck in his 
throat ; for fleet-footed racers were speeding round 
and round, and the fellow who got thrown in the 
midst of all these trampling hoofs would have 
small chance of looking upon the sun again. Peo- 
ple instinctively tossed their heads up to see how 
high he would go before coming down again ; but, 
for a wonder, they saw nothing, except a cloud of 
dust mixed with tan-bark, and when that had 
cleared away they discovered the black mare and 
her rider, apparently on the best of terms, dashing 
up the track at a breakneck pace. 

Erik was dripping with perspiration when he dis- 
mounted, and Lady Clare’s glossy coat was flecked 
with foam. She was not aware, apparently, that if 
she had any reputation to ruin she had damaged it 
most effectually. Her behavior on the track and 
her treatment of the horse-dealer were by this time 
common property, and every dealer and fancier 
made a mental note that Lady Clare was the 
number in the catalogue which he would not bid 
on. All her beauty and her distinguished ances- 
try counted for nothing, as long as she had so un- 
certain a temper. Her sire, Potiphar, it appeared, 
had also been subject to the same infirmities of 
temper, and there was a strain of savagery in her 
blood which might crop out when you least ex- 
pected it. 


148 


BOYHOOD I M NORWAY 


Accordingly, when a dozen fine horses had been 
knocked down at good prices, and Lady Clare’s 
turn came, no one came forward to inspect her, and 
no one could be found to make a bid. 

“Well, well, gentlemen,” cried the auctioneer, 
“ here we have a beautiful thoroughbred mare, the 
favorite mount of Her Royal Highness the Prin- 
cess, and not a bid do I hear. She’s a beauty, 
gentlemen, sired by the famous Potiphar who won 
the Epsom Handicap and no end of minor stakes. 
Take a look at her, gentlemen ! Did you ever see 
a horse before that was raven black from nose to 
tail ? I reckon you never did. But such a horse 
is Lady Clare. The man who can find a single 
white hair on her can have her for a gift. Come 
forward, gentlemen, come forward. Who will start 
her — say at five hundred ? ” 

A derisive laugh ran through the crowd, and a 
voice was heard to cry, “ Fifty.” 

“ Fifty ! ” repeated the auctioneer, in a deeply 
grieved and injured tone; “fifty did you say, sir? 
Fifty ? Did I hear rightly ? I hope, for the sake 
of the honor of this fair city, that my ears deceived 
me. 

Here came a long and impressive pause, during 
which the auctioneer, suddenly abandoning his 
dramatic manner, chatted familiarly with a gentle- 
man who stood near him. The only one in the 
crowd whom he had impressed with the fact that 


LADY CLARE 


149 


the honor of the city was at stake in this sale was 
Erik Carstens. He had happily discovered a young 
and rich lieutenant of his father’s company, and 
was trying to persuade him to bid in the mare for 
him. 

“ But, my dear boy,” Lieutenant Blicker ex- 
claimed, “ what do you suppose the captain will 
say to me if I aid and abet his son in defying the 
paternal authority ? ” 

“ Oh, you needn’t bother about that,” Erik re- 
joined eagerly. “ If father was at home, I believe 
he would allow me to buy this mare. But I am 
a minor yet, and the auctioneer would not accept 
my bid. Therefore I thought you might be kind* 
enough to bid for me.” 

The lieutenant made no answer, but looked at 
the earnest face of the boy with unmistakable sym- 
pathy. The auctioneer assumed again an insulted, 
affronted, pathetically entreating or scornfully re- 
pelling tone, according as it suited his purpose; 
and the price of Lady Clare crawled slowly and 
reluctantly up from fifty to seventy dollars. There 
it stopped, and neither the auctioneer’s tears nor 
his prayers could apparently coax it higher. 

“ Seventy dollars ! ” he cried, as if he were really 
too shocked to speak at all ; ‘‘ seven-ty dollars ! 
Make it eighty ! Oh, it is a sin and a shame, gen- 
tlemen, and the fair fame of this beautiful city is 
eternally ruined, It will become a wagging of the 


150 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


head and a byword among the nations. Sev-en-ty 
dollars ! ” — then hotly and indignantly — “ seventy 
dollars ! — fifth and last time, seventy dollars ! 
here he raised his hammer threateningly — “sev- 
enty dollars ! ” 

“ One hundred ! ” cried a high boyish voice, and 
in an instant every neck was craned and every eye 
was turned toward the corner where Erik Carstens 
was standing, half hidden behind the broad figure 
of Lieutenant Blicker. 

“ Did I hear a hundred ? ” repeated the auction- 
eer, wonderingly. “ May I ask who was the gen- 
tleman who said a hundred ? ” 

An embarrassing silence followed. Erik knew 
that if he acknowledged the bid he would suffer 
the shame of having it refused. But his excite- 
ment and his solicitude for the fair fame of his na- 
tive city had carried him away so completely that 
the words had escaped from his lips before he was 
fully aware of their import. 

“ May I ask,” repeated the wielder of the ham- 
mer, slowly and emphatically, “ may I ask the gen- 
tleman who offered one hundred dollars for Lady 
Clare to come forward and give his name ?” 

He now looked straight at Erik, who blushed to 
the edge of his hair, but did not stir from the spot. 
From sheer embarrassment he clutched the lieuten- 
ant’s arm, and almost pinched it. 

“ Oh, I beg your pardon,” the officer exclaimed, 


LADY CLARE 


151 

addressing the auctioneer, as if he had suddenly 
been aroused from a fit of abstraction ; “ I made 
the bid of one hundred dollars, or — or — at any rate, 
I make it now.” 

The same performance, intended to force up the 
price, was repeated once more, but with no avail, 
and at the end of two minutes Lady Clare was 
knocked down to Lieutenant Blicker. 

“ Now I have gone and done it like the bloom- 
ing idiot that I am,” observed the lieutenant, when 
Lady Clare was led into his stable by a liveried 
groom. “ What an overhauling the captain will 
give me when he gets home.” 

“You need have no fear,” Erik replied. “I’ll 
sound father as soon as he gets home ; and if he 
makes any trouble I’ll pay you that oiie hundred 
dollars, with interest, the day I come of age.” 

Well, the captain came home, and having long 
had the intention to present his son with a saddle- 
horse, he allowed himself to be cajoled into ap- 
proving of the bargain. The mare was an exqui- 
site creature, if ever there was one, and he could 
well understand how Erik had been carried away. 
Lieutenant Blicker, instead of being hauled over 
the coals, as he had expected, received thanks for 
his kind and generous conduct toward the son of 
his superior officer. As for Erik himself, he had 
never had any idea that a boy’s life could be so 
glorious as his was now. Mounted on that splen- 


152 


BOYHOOD IH NORWAY 


did, coal-black mare, he rode through the city and 
far out into the country at his father’s side ; and 
never did it seem to him that he had loved his 
father so well as he did during these afternoon 
rides. The captain was far from suspecting that in 
that episode of the purchase of Lady Clare his own 
relation to his son had been at stake. Not that 
Erik would not have obeyed his father, even if he 
had turned out his rough side and taken the lieu- 
tenant to task for his kindness ; but their relation 
would in that case have lacked the warm intimacy 
(which in nowise excludes obedience and respect) 
and that last touch of devoted admiration which 
now bound them together. 

That fine touch of sympathy in the captain’s 
disposition which had enabled him to smile indul- 
gently at his son’s enthusiasm for the horse made 
the son doubly anxious not to abuse such kindness, 
and to do everything in his power to deserve the 
confidence which made his life so rich and happy. 
Though, as I have said, Captain Carstens lacked 
the acuteness to discover how much he owed to 
Lady Clare, he acknowledged himself in quite a 
different way her debtor. He had never really 
been aware what a splendid specimen of a boy his 
son was until he saw him on the back of that spir- 
ited mare, which cut up with him like the Old 
Harry, and yet never succeeded in flurrying, far 
less in unseating him. The captain felt a glow of 


LADY CLARE 


153 


affection warming his breast at the sight of this, 
and his pride in Erik’s horsemanship proved a con- 
solation to him when the boy’s less distinguished 
performances at school caused him fret and worry. 

“A boy so full of pluck must amount to some- 
thing, even if he does not take kindly to Latin,” he 
reflected many a time. “ I am afraid I have made 
a mistake in having him prepared for college. In 
the army now, and particularly in the cavalry, he 
would make a reputation in twenty minutes.” 

And a cavalryman Erik might, perhaps, have be- 
come if his father had not been transferred to an- 
other post, and compelled to take up his residence 
in the country. It was nominally a promotion, but 
Captain Carstens was ill pleased with it, and even 
had some thought of resigning rather than give up 
his delightful city life, and move far northward 
into the region of cod and herring. However, he 
was too young a man to retire on a pension, as 
yet, and so he gradually reconciled himself to the 
thought, and sailed northward in the month of 
April with his son and his entire household. It 
had long been a question whether Lady Clare 
should make the journey with them ; for Captain 
Carstens maintained that so high-bred an animal 
would be very sensitive to climatic changes and 
might even die on the way. Again, he argued that 
it was an absurdity to bring so fine a horse into a 
rough country, where the roads are poor and where 


BOYHOOD m NORWAY 


^54 

nature, in mercy, provides all beasts with rough, 
shaggy coats to protect them from the cold. How 
would Lady Clare, with her glossy satin coat, her 
slender legs that pirouetted so daintily over the 
ground, and her exquisite head, which she carried 
so proudly — how would she look and what kind of 
figure would she cut among the shaggy, stunted, 
sedate-looking nags of the Sognefiord district ? 
But the captain, though what he said was irrefut- 
able, had to suspend all argument when he saw 
how utterly wretched Erik became at the mere 
thought of losing Lady Clare. So he took his 
chances ; and, after having ordered blankets of 
three different thicknesses for three different kinds 
of weather, shipped the mare with the rest of his 
family for his new northern home. 

As the weather proved unusually mild during 
the northward voyage Lady Clare arrived in Sogn 
without accident or adventure. And never in all 
her life had she looked more beautiful than she did 
when she came off the steamer, and half the popu- 
lation of the valley turned out to see her. It is no 
use denying that she was as vain as any other pro- 
fessional beauty, and the way she danced and pir- 
ouetted on the gangplank, when Erik led her on to 
the pier, filled the rustics with amazement. They 
had come to look at the new captain and his fam- 
ily ; but when Lady Clare appeared she eclipsed 
the rest of the company so completely that no one 


LADY CLARE 


155 


had eyes for anybody but her. As the sun was 
shining and the wind was mild, Erik had taken off 
her striped overcoat (which covered her from nose 
to tail), for he felt in every fibre of his body the 
sensation she was making, and blushed with pleas- 
ure as if the admiring exclamations had been in- 
tended for himself. 

“ Look at that horse,” cried young and old, with 
eyes as big as saucers, pointing with their fingers at 
Lady Clare. 

“ Handsome carcass that nriare has,” remarked a 
stoutish man, who knew what he was talking about ; 
“ and head and legs to match.” 

“ She beats your Valders-Roan all hollow, John 
Garvestad,” said a young tease who stood next to 
him in the crowd. 

“ My Valders-Roan has never seen his match 
yet, and never will, according to my reckoning,” 
answered John Garvestad. 

“ Ho ! ho ! ” shouted the young fellow, with a 
mocking laugh ; “ that black mare is a hand taller 
at the very least, and I bet you she’s a high-flyer. 
She has got the prettiest legs I ever clapped eyes on.” 

“ They’d snap like clay pipes in the mountains,” 
replied Garvestad, contemptuously. 

Erik, as he blushingly ascended the slope to his 
new home, leading Lady Clare by a halter, had no 
suspicion of the sentiments which she had aroused 
in John Garvestad’s breast. He was only blissfully 


156 BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 

conscious of the admiration she had excited ; and 
he promised himself a good deal of fun in future 
in showing off his horsemanship. He took Lady 
Clare to the stable, where a new box-stall had been 
made for her, examined the premises carefully and 
nailed a board over a crevice in the wall where he 
suspected a draught. He instructed Anders, the 
groom, with emphatic and anxious repetitions re- 
garding her care, showed him how to make Lady 
Clare’s bed, how to comb her mane, how to brush 
her (for she refused to endure currying), how to 
blanket her, and how to read the thermometer 
which he nailed to one of the posts of the stall. 
The latter proved to be a more difficult task than 
he had anticipated ; and the worst of it was that 
he was not sure that Anders knew any more on the 
subject of his instruction at the end of the lesson 
than he had at the beginning. To make sure that 
he had understood him he asked him to enter the 
stall and begin the process of grooming. But no 
sooner had the unhappy fellow put his nose inside 
the door than Lady Clare laid back her ears in a 
very ugly fashion, and with a vicious whisk of her 
tail waltzed around and planted two hoof-marks in 
the door, just where the groom’s nose had that 
very instant vanished. A second and a third trial 
had similar results; and as the box-stall was new 
and of hard wood, Erik had no wish to see it fur- 
ther damaged. 


LADY CLARE 


157 


“ I won’t have nothin’ to do with that boss, that’s 
as certain as my name is Anders,” the groom de- 
clared; and Erik, knowing that persuasion would 
be useless, had henceforth to be his own groom. 
The fact was he could not help sympathizing with 
that fastidiousness of Lady Clare which made her 
object to be handled by coarse fingers and roughly 
curried, combed, and washed like a common plebeian 
nag. One does not commence life associating with 
a princess for nothing. Lady Clare, feeling in every 
nerve her high descent and breeding, had perhaps a 
sense of having come down in the world, and, like 
many another irrational creature of her sex, she 
kicked madly against fate and exhibited the un- 
loveliest side of her character. But with all her 
skittishness and caprice she was steadfast in one 
thing, and that was her love for Erik. As the days 
went by in country monotony, he began to feel it 
as a privilege rather than a burden to have the 
exclusive care of her. The low, friendly neighing 
with which she always greeted him, as soon as he 
opened the stable-door, was as intelligible and dear 
to him as the warm welcome of a friend. And 
when with dainty alertness she lifted her small, 
beautiful head, over which the fine net-work of veins 
meandered, above the top of the stall, and rubbed 
her nose caressingly against his cheek, before begin- 
ning to snuff at his various pockets for the accus- 
tomed lump of sugar, he felt a glow of affection 


IS8 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


spread from his heart and pervade his whole being. 
Yes, he loved this beautiful animal with a devotion 
which, a year ago, he would scarcely have thought 
it possible to bestow upon a horse. No one could 
have persuaded him that Lady Clare had not a soul 
which (whether it was immortal or not) was, at all 
events, as distinct and clearly defined as that of any 
person with whom he was acquainted. She was to 
him a personality — a dear, charming friend, with 
certain defects of character (as who has not ?) which 
were, however, more than compensated for by her 
devotion to him. She was fastidious, quick-tem- 
pered, utterly unreasonable where her feelings were 
involved ; full of aristocratic prejudice, which only 
her sex could excuse ; and whimsical, proud, and 
capricious. It was absurd, of course, to contend 
that these qualities were in themselves admirable ; 
but, on the other hand, few of us would not consent 
to overlook them in a friend who loved us as well 
as Lady Clare loved Erik. 

The fame of Lady Clare spread through the 
parish like fire in withered grass. People came 
from afar to look at her, and departed full of won- 
der at her beauty. When the captain and his son 
rode together to church on Sunday morning, men, 
women, and children stood in rows at the roadside 
staring at the wonderful mare as if she had been a 
dromedary or a rhinoceros. And when she was tied 
in the clergyman’s stable a large number of the men 


LADY CLARE 


159 


ignored the admonition of the church bells and 
missed the sermon, being unable to tear themselves 
away from Lady Clare’s charms. But woe to him 
who attempted to take liberties with her; there 
were two or three horsy young men who had nar- 
row escapes from bearing the imprint of her iron 
shoes for the rest of their days. That taught the 
others a lesson, and now Lady Clare suffered from 
no annoying familiarities, but was admired at a 
respectful distance, until the pastor, vexed at her 
rivalry with his sermon, issued orders to have the 
stable-door locked during service. 

There was one person besides the pastor who 
was ill pleased at the reputation Lady Clare was 
making. That w^as John Garvestad, the owner of 
Valders-Roan. John was the richest man in the 
parish, and always made a point of keeping fine 
horses. Valders-Roan, a heavily built, powerful 
horse, with a tremendous neck and chest and long 
tassels on his fetlocks, but rather squat in the legs, 
had hitherto held undisputed rank as the finest 
horse in all Sogn. By the side of Lady Clare he 
looked as a stout, good-looking peasant lad with 
coltish manners might have looked by the side of 
the daughter of a hundred earls. 

But John Garvestad, who was naturally preju- 
diced in favor of his own horse, could scarcely be 
blamed for failing to recognize her superiority. He 
knew that formerly, on Sundays, the men were 


l60 BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 

wont to gather with admiring comment about 
Valders-Roan ; while now they stood craning their 
necks, peering through the windows of the parson’s 
stable, in order to catch a glimpse of Lady Clare, 
and all the time Valders-Roan was standing tied to 
the fence, in full view of all, utterly neglected. This 
spectacle filled him with such ire that he hardly 
could control himself. His first impulse was to 
pick a quarrel with Erik ; but a second and far 
brighter idea presently struck him. He would buy 
Lady Clare. Accordingly, when the captain and 
his son had mounted their horses and were about 
to start on their homeward way, Garvestad, putting 
Valders-Roan to his trumps, dug his heels into his 
sides and rode up with a great flourish in front of 
ti\e churchyard gate. 

“ How much will you take for that mare of 
;yours, captain?” he asked, as he checked his 
charger with unnecessary vigor close to Lady Clare. 

** She is not mine to sell,” the captain replied. 

Lady Clare belongs to my son.” 

“ Well, what will you take for her, then ?” Gar- 
vestad repeated, swaggeringly, turning to Erik. 

“ Not all the gold in the world could buy her,” 
retorted Erik, warmly. 

Valders-Roan, unable to resist the charms of Lady 
Clare, had in the meanwhile been making some 
cautious overtures toward an acquaintance. He 
arched his mighty neck, rose on his hind legs, while 


LADY CLARE 


I6l 


his tremendous forehoofs were beating the air, and 
cut up generally — all for Lady Clare’s benefit. 

She, however, having regarded his performances 
for awhile with a mild and somewhat condescend- 
ing interest, grew a little tired of them and looked 
out over the fiord, as a belle might do, with a sup- 
pressed yawn, when her cavalier fails to entertain 
her. Valders-Roan, perceiving the slight, now con- 
cluded to make more decided advances. So he put 
forward his nose until it nearly touched Lady Clare’s, 
as if he meant to kiss her. But that was more than 
her ladyship was prepared to put up with. Quick 
as a flash she flung herself back on her haunches, 
down went her ears, and hers was the angriest 
horse’s head that ever had been seen in that par- 
ish. With an indignant snort she wheeled around, 
kicking up a cloud of dust by the suddenness of the 
manoeuvre. A less skilled rider than Erik would 
inevitably have been thrown by two such unfore- 
seen jerks ; and the fact was he had all he could do 
to keep his seat. 

“ Oho ! ” shouted Garvestad, “ your mare shies ; 
she’ll break your neck some day, as likely as not. 
You had better sell her before she gets you into 
trouble." 

But I shouldn’t like to have your broken neck 
on my conscience," Erik replied ; “ if necks are to 
be broken by Lady Clare I should prefer to have it 
be my own.” 


II 


i 62 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


The peasant was not clever enough to make out 
whether this was jest or earnest. With a puzzled 
frown he stared at the youth and finally broke out : 

“ Then you won’t sell her at no price ? Any 
way, the day you change your mind don’t forget to 
notify John Garvestad. If it’s spondulix you are 
after, then here’s where there’s plenty of ’em.” 

He slapped his left breast-pocket with a great 
swagger, looking around to observe the impression 
he was making on his audience ; then, jerking the 
bridle violently, so as to make his horse rear, he 
rode off like Alexander on Bucephalus, and swung 
down upon the highway. 

It was but a few weeks after this occurrence that 
Captain Carstens and his son were invited to honor 
John Garvestad by their presence at his wedding. 
They were in doubt, at first, as to whether they 
ought to accept the invitation ; for some unpleas- 
ant rumors had reached them, showing that Gar- 
vestad entertained unfriendly feelings toward them. 
He was an intensely vain man ; and the thought 
that Erik Carstens had a finer horse than Valders- 
Roan left him no peace. He had been heard to 
say repeatedly that, if that high-nosed youth per- 
sisted in his refusal to sell the mare, he would dis- 
cover his mistake when, perhaps, it would be too 
late to have it remedied. Whatever that meant, it 
sufficed to make both Erik and his father uneasy. 
But, on the other hand, it would be the worst pol- 


LADY CLARE 


163 

icy possible, under such circumstances, to refuse 
the invitation. For that would be interpreted 
either as fear or as aristocratic exclusiveness ; and 
the captain, while he was new in the district, was 
as anxious to avoid the appearance of the one as of 
the other. Accordingly he accepted the invitation 
and on the appointed day rode with his son into 
the wide yard of John Garvestad’s farm, stopping 
at the pump, where they watered their horses. It 
was early in the afternoon, and both the house 
and the barn were thronged with wedding-guests. 
From the sitting-room the strains of two fiddles 
were heard, mingled with the scraping and stamp- 
ing of heavy feet. Another musical performance 
was in progress in the barn ; and all over the yard 
elderly men and youths were standing in smaller 
and larger groups, smoking their pipes and tasting 
the beer-jugs, which were passed from hand to 
hand. But the moment Lady Clare was seen all 
interest in minor concerns ceased, and with one ac- 
cord the crowd moved toward her, completely en- 
circling her, and viewing her with admiring glances 
that appreciated all her perfections. 

“Did you ever see cleaner- shaped legs on a 
horse ? someone was heard to say, and instantly 
his neighbor in the crowd joined the chorus of 
praise, and added : “ What a snap and spring there 
is in every bend of her knee and turn of her neck 
and flash of her eye I ” 


1 64 BO YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 

It was while this chorus of admiration was being 
sung in all keys and tones of the whole gamut, 
that the bridegroom came out of the house, a little 
bit tipsy, perhaps, from the many toasts he had 
been obliged to drink, and bristling with pugnac- 
ity to the ends of his fingers and the tips of his 
hair. Every word of praise that he heard sounded 
in his ears like a jeer and an insult to himself. 
With ruthless thrusts he elbowed his way through 
the throng of guests and soon stood in front of the 
two horses, from which the captain and Erik had 
not yet had a chance to dismount. He returned 
their greeting with scant courtesy and plunged in- 
stantly into the matter which he had on his mind. 

“ I reckon you have thought better of my offer 
by this time,” he said, with a surly swagger, to 
Erik. “ What do you hold your mare at to-day ? ” 
I thought we had settled that matter once for 
all,” the boy replied, quietly. “ I have no more 
intention of selling Lady Clare now than I ever 
had.” 

“ Then will ye trade her off for Valders-Roan ? ” 
ejaculated Garvestad, eagerly. 

“ No, I won’t trade her for Valders-Roan or any 
other horse in creation.” 

“ Don’t be cantankerous, now, young fellow, or 
you might repent of it.” 

“ I am not cantankerous. But I beg of you 
kindly to drop this matter. I came here, at your 


LADY CLARE 1 65 

invitation, as a guest at your wedding, not for the 
purpose of trading horses.” 

It was an incautious speech, and was interpreted 
by everyone present as a rebuke to the bridegroom 
for his violation of the rules of hospitality. The 
captain, anxious to avoid a row, therefore broke in, 
in a voice of friendly remonstrance : “ My dear Mr. 
Garvestad, do let us drop this matter. If you will 
permit us, we should like to dismount and drink a 
toast to your health, wishing you a long life and 
much happiness.” 

“ Ah, yes, I understand your smooth palaver,” 
the bridegroom growled between his teeth. “ I 
have stood your insolence long enough, and, by 
jingo, I won’t stand it much longer. What will ye 
take for your mare, I say, or how much do you 
want to boot, if you trade her for Valders-Roan ?” 

He shouted the last words with furious emphasis, 
holding his clinched fist up toward Erik, and glar- 
ing at him savagely. 

But now Lady Clare, who became frightened 
perhaps by the loud talk and violent gestures, be- 
gan to rear and plunge, and by an unforeseen mo- 
tion knocked against the bridegroom, so that he 
fell backward into the horse-trough under the 
pump, which was full of water. The wedding- 
guests had hardly time to realize what was happen- 
ing when a great splash sent the water flying into 
their faces, and the burly form of John Garvestad 


i66 


B O Y HO OD IN NOR WA Y 


was seen sprawling helplessly in the horse-trough. 
But then — then they realized it with a vengeance. 
And a laugh went up— -a veritable storm of laugh- 
ter — which swept through the entire crowd and re- 
echoed with a ghostly hilarity from the mountains. 
John Garvestad in the meanwhile had managed to 
pick himself out of the horse-trough, and while he 
stood snorting, spitting, and dripping, Captain Car- 
stens and his son politely lifted their hats to him 
and rode away. But as they trotted out of the 
gate they saw their host stretch a big clinched fist 
toward them, and heard him scream with hoarse 
fury : “ Fll make ye smart for that some day, so 
help me God ! ” 

Lady Clare was not sent to the mountains in the 
summer, as are nearly all horses in the Norwegian 
country districts. She was left untethered in an 
enclosed home pasture about half a mile from the 
mansion. Here she grazed, rolled, kicked up her 
heels, and gambolled to her heart’s content. Dur- 
ing the long, bright summer nights, when the sun 
scarcely dips beneath the horizon and reappears in 
an hour, clothed in the breezy garments of morn- 
ing, she was permitted to frolic, race, and play all 
sorts of improvised games with a shaggy, little, 
plebeian three-year-old colt whom she had conde- 
scended to honor with her acquaintance. This 
colt must have had some fine feeling under his 
rough coat, for he never presumed in the least upon 


ZADY CLARE 


167 


the acquaintance, being perhaps aware of the honor 
it conferred upon him. He allowed himself to be 
abused, ignored, or petted, as it might suit the 
pleasure of her royal highness, with a patient, even- 
tempered good-nature which was admirable. When 
Lady Clare (perhaps for fear of making him con- 
ceited) took no notice of him, he showed neither 
resentment nor surprise, but walked off with a 
sheepish shake of his head. Thus he slowly 
learned the lesson to make no exhibition of feeling 
at the sight of his superior ; not to run up and 
greet her with a disrespectfully joyous whinny; 
but calmly wait for her to recognize him before ap- 
pearing to be aware of her presence. It took Lady 
Clare several months to accustom Shag (for that 
was the colt’s name) to her ways. She taught him 
unconsciously the rudiments of good manners ; but 
he proved himself docile, and when he once had 
been reduced to his proper place he proved a fairly 
acceptable companion. 

During the first and second week after John 
Garvestad’s wedding Erik had kept Lady Clare 
stabled, having a vague fear that the angry peasant 
might intend to do her harm. But she whinnied 
so pitifully through the long light nights that 
finally he allowed his compassion to get the better 
of his anxiety, and once more she was seen racing 
madly about the field with Shag, whom she always 
beat so ignominiously that she felt half sorry for 


I68 BOYHOOD JN NORWAY 

him, and as a consolation allowed him gently to 
claw her mane with his teeth. This was a privi- 
lege which Shag could not fail to appreciate, 
though she never offered to return the favor by 
clawing him. At any rate, as soon as Lady Clare 
reappeared in the meadow Shag’s cup of bliss 
seemed to be full. 

A week passed in this way, nothing happened, 
and Erik’s vigilance was relaxed. He went to 
bed on the evening of July loth with an easy 
mind, without the remotest apprehension of dan- 
ger. The sun set about ten o’clock, and Lady 
Clare and Shag greeted its last departing rays 
with a whinny, accompanied by a wanton kickup 
from the rear — for whatever Lady Clare did Shag 
felt in honor b(j)und to do, and was conscious of no 
disgrace in his abject and ape-like imitation. They 
had spent an hour, perhaps, in such delightful per- 
formances, when all of a sudden they were startled 
by a deep bass whinny, which rumbled and shook 
like distant thunder. Then came the tramp, tramp, 
tramp of heavy hoof-beats, which made the ground 
tremble. Lady Clare lifted her beautiful head and 
looked with fearless curiosity in the direction 
whence the sound came. Shag, of course, did as 
nearly as he could exactly the same. What they 
saw was a big roan horse with an enormous arched 
neck, squat feet, and long-tasselled fetlocks. 

Lady Clare had no difficulty in recognizing Vald- 


LADY CLARE 


169 


erS“Roan. But how big and heavy and ominous 
he looked in the blood-red after-glow of the blood- 
red sunset. For the first time in her life Lady 
Clare felt a cold shiver of fear run through her. 
There was, happily, a fence between them, and 
she devoutly hoped that Valders-Roan was not 
a jumper. At that moment, however, two men 
appeared next to the huge horse, and Lady Clare 
heard the sound of breaking fence-rails. The deep 
hoarse whinny once more made the air shake, and 
it made poor Lady Clare shake too, for now she 
saw Valders-Roan come like a whirlwind over the 
field, and so powerful were his hoof-beats that 
a clod of earth which had stuck to one of his 
shoes shot like a bullet through the air. He looked 
so gigantic, so brimming with restrained strength, 
and somehow Lady Clare, as she stood quaking at 
the sight of him, had never seemed to herself so 
dainty, frail, and delicate as she seemed in this mo- 
ment. She felt herself so entirely at his mercy ; 
she was no match for him surely. Shag, anxious 
as ever to take his cue from her, had stationed 
himself at her side, and shook his head and 
whisked his tail in a non-committal manner. Now 
Valders-Roan had cleared the fence where the 
men had broken it down ; then on he came again, 
tramp, tramp, tramp, until he was within half a 
dozen paces from Lady Clare. There he stopped, 
for back went Lady Clare’s pretty ears, while she 


170 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


threw herself upon her haunches in an attitude 
of defence. She was dimly aware that this was a 
foolish thing to do, but her inbred disdain and 
horror of everything rough made her act on in- 
stinct instead of reason. Valders-Roan, irritated 
by this uncalled-for action, now threw ceremony to 
the winds, and without further ado trotted up 
and rubbed his nose against hers. That was more 
than Lady Clare could stand. With an hysterical 
snort she flung herself about, and up flew her heels 
straight into the offending nose, inflicting consid- 
erable damage. . Shag, being now quite clear that 
the programme was fight, whisked about in exactly 
the same manner, with as close an imitation of 
Lady Clare’s snort as he could produce, and a sec- 
ond pair of steel-shod heels came within a hair of 
reducing the enemy’s left nostril to the same condi- 
tion as the right. But alas for the generous folly 
of youth ! Shag had to pay dearly for that ex- 
hibition of devotion. Valders-Roan, enraged by 
this wanton insult, made a dash at Shag, and 
by the mere impetus of his huge bulk nearly 
knocked him senseless. The colt rolled over, flung 
all his four legs into the air, and as soon as he 
could recover his footing reeled sideways like a 
drunken man and made haste to retire to a safe 
distance. 

Valders-Roan had now a clear field and could 
turn his undivided attention to Lady Clare. I am 


LADY CLARE 


171 


not sure that he had not made an example of Shag 
merely to frighten her. Bounding forward with 
his mighty chest expanded and the blood dripping 
from his nostrils, he struck out with a tremendous 
hind leg and would have returned Lady Clare’s 
blow with interest if she had not leaped high into 
the air. She had just managed by her superior 
alertness to dodge that deadly hoof, and was per- 
haps not prepared for an instant renewal of the at- 
tack. But she had barely gotten her four feet in 
contact with the sod when two rows of terrific teeth 
plunged into her withers. The pain was frightful, 
and with a long, pitiful scream Lady Clare sank 
down upon the ground, and, writhing with agony, 
beat the air with her hoofs. Shag, who had by 
this time recovered his senses, heard the noise of 
the battle, and, plucking up his courage, trotted 
bravely forward against the victorious Valders- 
Roan. He was so frightened that his heart shot 
up into his throat. But there lay Lady Clare 
mangled and bleeding. He could not leave her in 
the lurch, so forward he came, trembling, just as 
Lady Clare was trying to scramble to her feet. 
Led away by his sympathy Shag bent his head 
down toward her and thereby prevented her from 
rising. And in the same instant a stunning blow 
hit him straight in the forehead, a shower of sparks 
danced before his eyes, and then Shag saw and 
heard no more. A convulsive quiver ran through 


172 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


his body, then he stretched out his neck on the 
bloody grass, heaved a sigh, and died. 

Lady Clare, seeing Shag killed by the blow 
which had been intended for herself, felt her blood 
run cold. She was strongly inclined to run, for she 
could easily beat the heavy Valders-Roan at a race, 
and her fleet legs might yet save her. I cannot say 
whether it was a generous wrath at the killing of 
her humble champion or a mere blind fury which 
overcame this inclination. But she knew now 
neither pain nor fear. With a shrill scream she 
rushed at Valders-Roan, and for five minutes a 
whirling cloud of earth and grass and lumps of sod 
moved irregularly over the field, and tails, heads, 
and legs were seen flung and tossed madly about, 
while an occasional shriek of rage or of pain startled 
the night, and re-echoed with a weird resonance 
between the mountains. 

It was about five o’clock in the morning of July 
nth, that Erik awoke, with a vague sense that 
something terrible had happened. His groom was 
standing at his bedside with a terrified face, doubt- 
ful whether to arouse his young master or allow him 
to sleep. 

“ What has happened, Anders ? ” cried Erik, tum- 
bling out of bed. 

“ Lady Clare, sir ” 

“ Lady Clare ! ” shouted the boy “ What about 
her ? Has she been stolen ? ” 


LADY CLARE 


173 


“No, I reckon not,” drawled Anders. 

“ Then she’s dead ! Quick, tell me what you 
know or I shall go crazy 1 ” 

“ No ; I can’t say for sure she’s dead either,” 
the groom stammered, helplessly. 

Erik, being too stunned with grief and pain, 
tumbled in a dazed fashion about the room, and 
scarcely knew how he managed to dress. He felt 
cold, shivery, and benumbed; and the daylight had 
a cruel glare in it which hurt his eyes. Accom- 
panied by his groom, he hastened to the home 
pasture, and saw there the evidence of the fierce 
battle which had raged during the night. A long, 
black, serpentine track, where the sod had been 
torn up by furious hoof-beats, started from the dead 
carcass of the faithful Shag and moved with irregu- 
lar breaks and curves up toward the gate that con- 
nected the pasture with the underbrush of birch 
and alder. Here the fence had been broken down, 
and the track of the fight suddenly ceased. A pool 
of blood had soaked into the ground, showing that 
one of the horses, and probably the victor, must 
have stood still for a while, allowing the van- 
quished to escape. 

Erik had no need of being told that the horse 
which had attacked Lady Clare was Valders-Roan; 
and though he would scarcely have been able to 
prove it, he felt positive that John Garvestad had 
arranged and probably watched the fight. Having 


174 


B O YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 


a wholesome dread of jail, he had not dared to steal 
Lady Clare ; but he had chosen this contemptible 
method to satisfy his senseless jealousy. It was 
all so cunningly devised as to baffle legal inquiry. 
Valders-Roan had gotten astray, and being a heavy 
beast, had broken into a neighbor’s field and fought 
with his filly, chasing her away into the mountains. 
That was the story he would tell, of course, and as 
there had been no witnesses present, there was no 
way of disproving it. 

Abandoning, however, for the time being all 
thought of revenge, Erik determined to bend all 
his energies to the recovery of Lady Clare. He 
felt confident that she had run away from her 
assailant, and was now roaming about in the 
mountains. He therefore organized a search party 
of all the male servants on the estate, besides a 
couple of volunteers, making in all nine. On the 
evening of the first day’s search they put up at 
a saeter or mountain chalet. Here they met a 
young man named Tollef Morud, who had once 
been a groom at John Garvestad’s. This man had 
a bad reputation ; and as the idea occurred to some 
of them that he might know something about Lady 
Clare’s disappearance, they questioned him at great 
length, without, however, eliciting a single crumb 
of information. 

For a week the search was continued, but had 
finally to be given up. Weary, footsore, and heavy- 


LADY CLARE 


175 


hearted, Erik returned home. His grief at the loss 
of Lady Clare began to tell on his health ; and his 
perpetual plans for getting even with John Gar- 
vestad amounted almost to a mania, and caused 
his father both trouble and anxiety. It was there 
fore determined to send him to the military acad- 
emy in the capital. 

Four or five years passed and Erik became a 
lieutenant. It was during the first year after his 
graduation from the military academy that he was 
invited to spend the Christmas holidays with a 
friend, whose parents lived on a fine estate about 
twenty miles from the city. Seated in their nar- 
row sleighs, which were drawn by brisk horses, they 
drove merrily along, shouting to each other to make 
their voices heard above the jingling of the bells. 
About eight o’clock in the evening, when the moon 
was shining brightly and the snow sparkling, they 
turned in at a wayside tavern to order their supper. 
Here a great crowd of lumbermen had congregated, 
and all along the fences their overworked, half- 
broken-down horses stood, shaking their nose-bags. 
The air in the public room was so filled with the 
fumes of damp clothes and bad tobacco that Erik 
and his friend, while waiting for their meal, pre- 
ferred to spend the time under the radiant sky. 
They were sauntering about, talking in a desultory 
fashion, when all of a sudden a wild, joyous whinny 
rang out upon the startled air. It came from a 


176 


B O YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 


rusty, black, decrepit - looking mare hitched to a 
lumber sleigh which they had just passed. Erik, 
growing very serious, paused abruptly. 

A second whinny, lower than the first, but almost 
alluring and cajoling, was so directly addressed to 
Erik that he could not help stepping up to the mare 
and patting her on the nose. 

“ You once had a horse you cared a great deal 
for, didn’t you ? ” his friend remarked, casually. 

“ Oh, don’t speak about it,” answered Erik, in a 
voice that shook with emotion ; “ I loved Lady Clare 
as I never loved any creature in this world — except 
my father, of course,” he added, reflectively. 

But what was the matter with the old lumber 
nag ? At the sound of the name Lady Clare she 
pricked up her ears, and lifted her head with a 
pathetic attempt at alertness. With a low, insinu- 
ating neighing she rubbed her nose against the lieu- 
tenant’s cheek. He had let his hand glide over her 
long, thin neck, when quite suddenly his fingers slid 
into a deep scar in the withers. 

“ My God ! ” he cried, while the tears started to 
his eyes, “ am I awake, or am I dreaming ? ” 

“ What in the world is the matter ? ” inquired his 
comrade, anxiously. 

“ It is Lady Clare ! By the heavens, it is Lady 
Clare!” 

“That old ramshackle of a lumber nag whose . 
every rib you can count through her skin is your 


LADY CLARE 1 77 

beautiful thoroughbred ? ” ejaculated his friend, in- 
credulously. “ Come now, don’t be a goose.” 

“ ril tell you of it some other time,” said Erik, 
quietly ; “ but there’s not a shadow of a doubt that 
this is Lady Clare.” 

Yes, strange as it may seem, it was indeed Lady 
Clare. But oh, who would have recognized in this 
skeleton, covered with a rusty-black skin and tousled 
mane and forelock in which chaff and dirt were en- 
tangled — who would have recognized in this droop- 
ing and rickety creature the proud, the dainty, the 
exquisite Lady Clare ? Her beautiful tail, which 
had once been her pride, was now a mere scanty 
wisp ; and a sharp, gnarled ridge running along the 
entire length of her back showed every vertebra of 
her spine through the notched and scarred skin. 
Poor Lady Clare, she had seen hard usage. But 
now the days of her tribulations are at an end. It 
did not take Erik long to find the half-tipsy lumber- 
man who was Lady Clare’s owner ; nor to agree with 
him on the price for which he was willing to part 
with her. 

There is but little more to relate. By inter- 
views and correspondence with the different par- 
ties through whose hands the mare had passed, 
Erik succeeded in tracing her to Tollef Morud, the 
ex-groom of John Garvestad. On being promised 
immunity from prosecution, he was induced to con- 
fess that he had been hired by his former master to 


12 


178 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


arrange the nocturnal fight between Lady Clare and 
Valders-Roan, and had been paid ten dollars for 
stealing the mare when she had been sufficiently 
damaged. John Garvestad had himself watched 
the fight from behind the fence, and had laughed 
fit to split his sides, until Valders-Roan seemed on 
the point of being worsted. Then he had inter- 
fered to separate them, and Tollef had led Lady 
Clare away, bleeding from a dozen wounds, and had 
hidden her in a deserted lumberman’s shed near the 
saeter where the searchers had overtaken him. 

Having obtained these facts, Erik took pains to 
let John Garvestad know that the chain of evidence 
against him was complete, and if he had had his 
own way he would not have rested until his enemy 
had suffered the full penalty of the law. But John 
Garvestad, suspecting what was in the young man’s 
mind, suddenly divested himself of his pride, and 
cringing like a whipped dog, came and asked Erik’s 
pardon, entreating him not to prosecute. 

As for Lady Clare, she never recovered her lost 
beauty. A pretty fair-looking mare she became, to 
be sure, when good feeding and careful grooming 
had made her fat and glossy once more. A long 
and contented old age is, no doubt, in store for her. 
Having known evil days, she appreciates the bless- 
ings which the change in her fate has brought her. 
The captain declares she is the best-tempered and 
steadiest horse in his stable. 


BONNYBOY 


I. 

“ Oh, you never will amount to anything, 
Bonnyboy ! ” said Bonnyboy’s father, when he had 
vainly tried to show him how to use a gouge ; for 
Bonnyboy had just succeeded in gouging a piece 
out of his hand, and was standing helplessly, letting 
his blood drop on an engraving of Napoleon at 
Austerlitz, which had been sent to his father for 
framing. The trouble with Bonnyboy was that he 
was not only awkward — left-handed in everything 
he undertook, as his father put it — but he was so 
very good-natured that it was impossible to get 
angry with him. His large blue innocent eyes had 
a childlike wonder in them, when he had done any- 
thing particularly stupid, and he was so willing and 
anxious to learn, that his ill-success seemed a reason 
for pity rather than for wrath. Grim Norvold, 
Bonnyboy’s father, was by trade a carpenter, and 
handy as he was at all kinds of tinkering, he found 
it particularly exasperating to have a son who was 
so left-handed. There was scarcely anything Grim 
could not do. He could take a watch apart and 


ISO BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 

put it together again ; he could mend a harness if 
necessary ; he could make a wagon ; nay, he could 
even doctor a horse when it got spavin or glanders. 
He was a sort of jack-of-all-trades, and a very use- 
ful man in a valley where mechanics were few and 
transportation difficult. He loved work for its own 
sake, and was ill at ease when he had not a tool in 
his hand. The exercise of his skill gave him a 
pleasure akin to that which the fish feels in swim- 
ming, the eagle in soaring, and the lark in singing. 
A finless fish, a wingless eagle, or a dumb lark could 
not have been more miserable than Grim was when 
a succession of holidays, like Easter or Christmas, 
compelled him to be idle. 

When his son was born his chief delight was to 
think of the time when he should be old enough to 
handle a tool, and learn the secrets of his father’s 
trade. Therefore, from the time the boy was old 
enough to sit or to crawl in the shavings without 
getting his mouth and eyes full of sawdust, he gave 
him a place under the turning bench, and talked or 
sang to him while he worked. And Bonnyboy, in 
the meanwhile amused himself by getting into all 
sorts of mischief. If it had not been for the belief 
that a good workman must grow up in the atmos- 
phere of the shop. Grim would have lost patience 
with his son and sent him back to his mother, who 
had better facilities for taking care of him. But the 
fact was he was too fond of the boy to be able to 


BONNY BOY 


l8i 

dispense with him, and he would rather bear the 
loss resulting from his mischief than miss his prattle 
and his pretty dimpled face. 

It was when the child was eighteen or nineteen 
months old that he acquired the name Bonnyboy. 
A woman of the neighborhood, who had called at 
the shop with some article of furniture which she 
wanted to have mended, discovered the infant in 
the act of investigating a pot of blue paint, with 
a part of which he had accidentally decorated his 
face. 

“ Good gracious ! what is that ugly thing you 
have got under your turning bench ? ” she cried, 
staring at the child in amazement. 

“ No, he is not an ugly thing,” replied the father, 
with resentment; “he is a bonny boy, that’s what 
he is.” 

The woman, in order to mollify Grim, turned to 
the boy, and asked, with her sweetest manner, 
“ What is your name, child ? ” 

“ Bonny boy,” murmured the child, with a 
vaguely offended air — “bonny boy.” 

And from that day the name Bonnyboy clung to 
him. 

II. 

To teach Bonnyboy the trade of a carpenter was 
a task which would have exhausted the patience of 
all the saints in the calendar. If there was any pos- 


|82 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


sible way of doing a thing wrong, Bonnyboy would 
be sure to hit upon that way. When he was eleven 
years old he chopped off the third joint of the ring- 
finger on his right hand with a cutting tool while 
working the turning-lathe ; and by the time he was 
fourteen it seemed a marvel to his father that he 
had any fingers left at all. But Bonnyboy perse- 
vered in spite of all difficulties, was always cheerful 
and of good courage, and when his father, in de- 
spair, exclaimed : “ Well, you will never amount to 
anything, Bonnyboy,” he would look up with his 
slow, winning smile and say : 

“ Don’t worry, father. Better luck next time.” 

“ But, my dear boy, how can I help worrying, 
when you don’t learn anything by which you can 
make your living ? ” 

“ Oh, well, father,” said Bonnyboy, soothingly (for 
he was beginning to feel sorry on his father’s ac- 
count rather than on his own), “ I wouldn’t bother 
about that if I were you. I don’t worry a bit. 
Something will turn up for me to do, sooner or later.” 

“ But you’ll do it badly, Bonnyboy, and then 
you won’t get a second chance. And then, who 
knows but you may starve to death. You’ll chop 
off the fingers you have left ; and when I am dead 
and can no longer look after you, I am very much 
afraid you’ll manage to chop off your head too.” 

“ Well,” observed Bonnyboy, cheerfully, “in that 
case I shall not starve to death.” 


BONNYBOY 


183 


Grim had to laugh in spite of himself at the pa- 
ternal way in which his son comforted him, as if he 
were the party to be pitied. Bonnyboy’s unfailing 
cheerfulness, which had its great charm, began to 
cause him uneasiness, because he feared it was but 
another form of stupidity. A cleverer boy would 
have been sorry for his mistakes and anxious about 
his own future. But Bonnyboy looked into the 
future with the serene confidence of a child, and 
nothing under the sun ever troubled him, except 
his father’s tendency to worry. For he was very 
fond of his father, and praised him as a paragon of 
skill and excellence. He lavished an abject admira- 
tion on everything he did and said. His dexterity 
in the use of tools, and his varied accomplishments 
as a watch-maker and a horse-doctor, filled Bonny- 
boy with ungrudging amazement. He knew it was 
a hopeless thing for him to aspire to rival such 
genius, and he took the thing philosophically, and 
did not aspire. 

It occurred to Grim one day, when Bonnyboy 
had made a most discouraging exhibition of his 
awkwardness, that it might be a good thing to ask 
the pastor’s advice in regard to him. The pastor 
had had a long experience in educating children, 
and his own, though they were not all clever, prom- 
ised to turn out well. Accordingly Grim called 
at the parsonage, was well received, and returned 
home charged to the muzzle with good advice, 


1 84 BO YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 

The pastor lent him a book full of stories, and re- 
commended him to read them to his son, and after- 
ward question him about every single fact which 
each story contained. This the pastor had found to 
be a good way to develop the intellect of a back- 
ward boy. 


III. 

When Bonnyboy had been confirmed, the ques- 
tion again rose what was to become of him. He 
was now a tall young fellow, red-cheeked, broad- 
shouldered, and strong, and rather nice-looking. A 
slow, good-natured smile spread over his face when 
anyone spoke to him, and he had a way of flinging 
his head back, when the tuft of yellow hair which 
usually hung down over his forehead obscured his 
sight. Most people liked him, even though they 
laughed at him behind his back ; but to his face 
nobody laughed, because his strength inspired re- 
spect. Nor did he know what fear was when he 
was roused ; but that was probably, as people 
thought, because he did not know much of any- 
thing. At any rate, on a certain occasion he 
showed that there was a limit to his good-nature, 
and when that limit was reached, he was not as 
harmless a fellow as he looked. 

On the neighboring farm of Gimlehaug there 
was a wedding to which Grim and his son were 


BONNYBOY 


i85 


invited. On the afternoon of the second wedding- 
day — for peasant weddings in Norway are often cel- 
ebrated for three days — a notorious bully named 
Ola Klemmerud took it into his head to have some 
sport with the big good-natured simpleton. So, by 
way of pleasantry, he pulled the tuft of hair which 
hung down upon Bonnyboy’s forehead. 

“ Don’t do that,” said Bonnyboy. 

Ola Klemmerud chuckled, and the next time he 
passed Bonnyboy, pinched his ear. 

“ If you do that again I sha’n’t like you,” cried 
Bonnyboy. 

The innocence of that remark made the people 
laugh, and the bully, seeing that their sympathy 
was on his side, was encouraged to continue his 
teasing. Taking a few dancing steps across the 
floor, he managed to touch Bonnyboy’s nose with 
the toe of his boot, which feat again was rewarded 
with a burst of laughter. The poor lad quietly 
blew his nose, wiped the perspiration off his brow 
with a red handkerchief, and said, “ Don’t make me 
mad, Ola, or I might hurt you.” 

This speech struck the company as being im- 
mensely funny, and they laughed till the tears ran 
down their cheeks. At this moment Grim entered, 
and perceived at once that Ola Klemmerud was 
amusing the company at his son’s expense. He 
grew hot about his ears, clinched his teeth, and 
stared challengtngly at the bully. The latter began 


1 86 BOYHOOD 117 NORWAY 

to feel uncomfortable, but he could not stop at this 
point without turning the laugh against himself, and 
that he had not the courage to do. So in order to 
avoid rousing the father’s wrath, and yet preserving 
his own dignity, he went over to Bonnyboy, rum- 
pled his hair with both his hands, and tweaked his 
nose. This appeared such innocent sport, according 
to his notion, that no rational creature could take 
offence at it. But Grim, whose sense of humor was 
probably defective, failed to see it in that light. 

“ Let the boy alone,” he thundered. 

“Well, don’t bite my head off, old man,” replied 
Ola. “ I haven’t hurt your fool of a boy. I have 
only been joking with him.” 

“ I don’t think you are troubled with overmuch 
wit yourself, judging by the style of your jokes,” 
was Grim’s cool retort. 

The company, who plainly saw that Ola was try- 
ing to wriggle out of his difficulty, but were anxious 
not to lose an exciting scene, screamed with laugh- 
ter again ; but this time at the bully’s expense. 
The blood mounted to his head, and his anger got 
the better of his natural cowardice. Instead of 
sneaking off, as he had intended, he wheeled about 
on his heel and stood for a moment irresolute, 
clinching his fist in his pocket. 

“Why don’t you take your lunkhead of a son 
home to his mother, if he isn’t bright enough to 
understand fun ! ” he shouted. 


BONNYBOY 


187 


“ Now let me see if you are bright enough to un- 
derstand the same kind of fun,” cried Grim. Where- 
upon he knocked off Ola’s cap, rumpled his hair, 
and gave his nose such a pull that it was a wonder 
it did not come off. 

The bully, taken by surprise, tumbled a step 
backward, but recovering himself, struck Grim in 
the face with his clinched fist. At this moment, 
Bonnyboy, who had scarcely taken in the situation, 
jumped up and screamed, “ Sit down, Ola Klem- 
merud, sit down ! ” 

The effect of this abrupt exclamation was so 
comical, that people nearly fell from their benches 
as they writhed and roared with laughter. 

Bonnyboy, who had risen to go to his father’s as- 
sistance, paused in astonishment in the middle of 
the floor. He could not comprehend, poor boy, 
why everything he said provoked such uncontrol- 
lable mirth. He surely had no intention of being 
funny. So, taken aback a little, he repeated to 
himself, half wonderingly, with an abrupt pause 
after each word, “ Sit — down — Ola — Klemmerud — 
sit — down ! ” 

But Ola Klemmerud, instead of sitting down, hit 
Grim repeatedly about the face and head, and it 
was evident that the elder man, in spite of his 
strength, was not a match for him in alertness. This 
dawned presently upon Bonnyboy’s slow compre- 
hension, and his good-natured smile gave way to a 


I88 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


flush of excitement. He took two long strides across 
the floor, pushed his father gently aside, and stood 
facing his antagonist. He repeated once more his 
invitation to sit down ; to which the latter respond- 
ed with a slap which made the sparks dance before 
Bonnyboy’s eyes. Now Bonnyboy became really 
angry. Instead of returning the slap, he seized his 
enemy with a sudden and mighty grab by both his 
shoulders, lifted him up as if he were a bag of hay, 
and put him down on a chair with such force that it 
broke into splinters under him. 

“ Will you now sit down ? ” said Bonnyboy. 

Nobody laughed this time, and the bully, not dar- 
ing to rise, remained seated on the floor among the 
ruins of the chair. Thereupon, with imperturbable 
composure, Bonnyboy turned to his father, brushed 
off his coat with his hands and smoothed his dis- 
ordered hair. “ Now let us go home, father,” 
he said, and taking the old man’s arm he walked 
out of the room. But hardly had he crossed the 
threshold before the astonished company broke 
into cheering. 

“ Good for you, Bonnyboy ! ” “ Well done, Bon- 
nyboy ! ” “ You are a bully boy, Bonnyboy ! ” they 

cried after him. 

But Bonnyboy strode calmly along, quite uncon- 
scious of his triumph, and only happy to have got- 
ten his father out of the room safe and sound. For 
a good while they walked on in silence. Then, 


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BONNY BOY 


189 

when the effect of the excitement had begun to 
wear away, Grim stopped in the path, gazed admir- 
ingly at his son, and said, Well, Bonnyboy, you 
are a queer fellow.” 

“ Oh, yes,” answered Bonnyboy, blushing with 
embarrassment (for though he did not comprehend 
the remark, he felt the approving gaze) ; “ but then, 
you know, I asked him to sit down, and he 
wouldn’t.” 

“ Bless your innocent heart ! ” murmured his fa- 
ther, as he gazed at Bonnyboy’s honest face with a 
mingling of affection and pity. 


IV. 

When Bonnyboy was twenty years old his fa- 
ther gave up, once for all, his attempt to make a 
carpenter of him. A number of saw-mills had been 
built during the last years along the river down in 
the valley, and the old rapids had been broken up 
into a succession of mill-dams, one above the other. 
At one of these saw-mills Bonnyboy sought work, 
and was engaged with many others as a mill hand. 
His business was to roll the logs on to the little 
trucks that ran on rails, and to push them up to 
the saws, where they were taken in charge by an- 
other set of men, who fastened and watched them 
while they were cut up into planks. Very little 


tgO BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 

art was, indeed, required for this simple task ; but 
strength was required, and of this Bonnyboy had 
enough and to spare. He worked with a will from 
early morn till dewy eve, and was happy in the 
thought that he had at last found something that 
he could do. It made the simple-hearted fellow 
proud to observe that he was actually gaining his 
father’s regard ; or, at all events, softening the dis- 
appointment which, in a vague way, he knew that 
his dulness must have caused him. If, occasionally, 
he was hurt by a rolling log, he never let any one 
know it ; but even though his foot was a mass of 
agony every time he stepped on it, he would march 
along as stiffly as a soldier. It was as if he felt his 
father’s eye upon him long before he saw him. 

There was a curious kind of sympathy between 
them which expressed itself, on the father’s part, in 
a need to be near his son. But he feared to avow 
any such weakness, knowing that Bonnyboy would 
interpret it as distrust of his ability to take care of 
himself, and a desire to help him if he got into 
trouble. Grim, therefore, invented all kinds of trans- 
parent pretexts for paying visits to the saw-mills. 
And when he saw Bonnyboy, conscious that his eye 
was resting upon him, swinging his axe so that the 
chips flew about his ears, and the perspiration rained 
from his brow, a dim anxiety often took posses- 
sion of him, though he could give no reason for it. 
That big brawny fellow, with the frame of a man 


BONNYBOY 


igi 


and the brain of a child, with his guileless face and 
his guileless heart, strangely moved his compassion. 
There was something almost beautiful about him, 
his father thought ; but he could not have told 
what it was ; nor would he probably have found 
any one else that shared his opinion. That frank 
and genial gaze of Bonnyboy’s, which expressed 
goodness of heart but nothing else, seemed to Grim 
an “ open sesame ” to all hearts ; and that una- 
wakened something which goes so well with child- 
hood, but not with adult age, filled him with ten- 
derness and a vague anxiety. “ My poor lad,” he 
would murmur to himself, as he caught sight of 
Bonnyboy’s big perspiring face, with the yellow 
tuft of hair hanging down over his forehead, “ clever 
you are not ; but you have that which the clever- 
est of us often lack.” 


V. 


There were sixteen saw-mills in all, and the one 
at which Bonnyboy was employed was the last of 
the series. They were built on little terraces on 
both banks of the river, and every four of them 
were supplied with power from an artificial dam, in 
which the water was stored in time of drought, and 
from which it escaped in a mill-race when required 
for use. These four dams were built of big stones, 
earthwork, and lumber, faced with smooth planks, 


1 92 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


over which a small quantity of water usually driz- 
zled into the shallow river-bed. Formerly, before 
the power was utilized, this slope had been cov- 
ered with seething and swirling rapids — a favor- 
ite resort of the salmon, which leaped high in the 
spring, and were caught in the box-traps that hung 
on long beams over the water. Now the salmon 
had small chance of shedding their spawn in the 
cool, bright mountain pools, for they could not leap 
the dams, and if by chance one got into the mill- 
race, it had a hopeless struggle against a current 
that would have carried an elephant off his feet. 
Bonnyboy, who more than once had seen the beau- 
tiful silvery fish spring right on to the millwheel, 
and be flung upon the rocks, had wished that he had 
understood the language of the fishes, so that he 
might tell them how foolish such proceedings were. 
But merciful though he was, he had been much dis- 
couraged when, after having put them back into the 
river, they had promptly repeated the experiment. 

There were about twenty-five or thirty men em- 
ployed at the mill where Bonnyboy earned his 
bread in the sweat of his brow, and he was, on the 
whole, on good terms with all of them. They did, 
to be sure, make fun of him occasionally ; but some- 
times he failed to understand it, and at other times 
he made clumsy but good-humored attempts to re- 
pay their gibes in kind. They took good care, how- 
ever, not to rouse his wrath, for the reputation he 


BONNYBOY 193 

had acquired by his treatment of Ola Klemmerud 
made them afraid to risk a collision. 

This was the situation when the great floods of 
1 88- came, and introduced a spice of danger into 
Bonnyboy’s monotonous life. The mill-races were 
now kept open night and day, and yet the water 
burst like a roaring cascade over the tops of dams, 
and the river-bed was filled to overflowing with a 
swiftly-hurrying tawny torrent, which filled the air 
with its rush and swash, and sent hissing showers of 
spray flying through the tree-tops. Bonnyboy and 
a gang of twenty men were working as they had 
never worked before in their lives, under the di- 
rection of an engineer, who had been summoned by 
the mill-owner to strengthen the dams ; for if but 
one of them burst, the whole tremendous volume of 
water would be precipitated upon the valley, and 
the village by the lower falls and every farm within 
half a mile of the river-banks would be swept out 
of existence. Guards were stationed all the way 
up the river to intercept any stray lumber that 
might be afloat. For if a log jam were added to the 
terrific strain of the flood, there would surely be no 
salvation possible. Yet in spite of all precautions, 
big logs now and then came bumping against the 
dams, and shot with wild gyrations and somer- 
saults down into the brown eddies below. 

The engineer, who was standing on the top of a 
log pile, had shouted until he was hoarse, and ges- 
n 


m 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


ticulated with his cane until his arms were lame, 
but yet there was a great deal to do before he could 
go to bed with an easy conscience. Bonnyboy and 
his comrades, who had had by far the harder part of 
the task, were ready to drop with fatigue. It was 
now eight o’clock in the evening, and they had 
worked since six in the morning, and had scarcely 
had time to swallow their scant rations. Some of 
them began to grumble, and the engineer had to 
coax and threaten them to induce them to perse- 
vere for another hour. The moon was just rising 
behind the mountain ridges, and the beautiful val- 
ley lay, with its green fields, sprouting forests, and 
red -painted farm-houses, at Bonnyboy’s feet. It was 
terrible to think that perhaps destruction was to 
overtake those happy and peaceful homes, where 
men had lived and died for many hundred years. 
Bonnyboy could scarcely keep back the tears when 
this fear suddenly came over him. Was it not 
strange that, though they knew that danger was 
threatening, they made not the slightest effort to 
save themselves ? In the village below men were 
still working in their forges, whose chimneys belched 
forth fiery smoke, and the sound of their hammer- 
blows could be heard above the roar of the river. 
Women were busy with their household tasks ; some 
boys were playing in the streets, damming up the 
gutters and shrieking with joy when their dams 
broke. A few provident souls had driven their 


BONNYBOY 


195 


cattle to the neighboring hills ; but neither them- 
selves nor their children had they thought it neces- 
sary to remove. The fact was, nobody believed 
that the dams would break, as they had not imagi- 
nation enough to foresee what would happen if the 
dams did break. 

Bonnyboy was wet to the skin, and hir knees 
were a trifle shaky from exhaustion. He had been 
cutting down an enormous mast-tree, which was 
needed for a prop to the dam, and had hauled it 
down with two horses, one of which was a half- 
broken gray colt, unused to pulling in a team. To 
restrain this frisky animal had required all Bonny- 
boy’s strength, and he stood wiping his brow with 
the sleeve of his shirt. Just at that moment a ter- 
rified yell sounded from above : “ Run for your 
lives ! The upper dam is breaking ! ” 

The engineer from the top of the log-pile cast a 
swift glance up the valley, and saw at once from the 
increasing volume of water that the report was true. 

“ Save yourselves, lads ! ” he screamed. “ Run to 
the woods ! ” 

And suiting his action to his words, he tumbled 
down from the log pile, and darted up the hill-side 
toward the forest. The other men, hearing the 
wild rush and roar above them, lost no time in fol- 
lowing his example. Only Bonnyboy, slow of 
comprehension as always, did not obey. Suddenly 
there flared up a wild resolution in his face. He 


BO YHO OD IN NOR WA V 


196 

pulled out his knife, cut the traces, and leaped upon 
the colt’s back. Lashing the beast, and shouting at 
the top of his voice, he dashed down the hill-side at 
a break-neck pace. 

“ The dam is breaking I ” he roared. “ Run for 
the woods ! ” 

He glanced anxiously behind him to see if the 
flood was overtaking him. A great cloud of spray 
was rising against the sky, and he heard the yells of 
men and the frenzied neighing of horses through the 
thunderous roar. But happily there was time. 
The dam was giving way gradually, and had not yet 
let loose the tremendous volume of death and deso- 
lation which it held enclosed within its frail tim- 
bers. The colt, catching the spirit of excitement 
in the air, flew like the wind, leaving farm after 
farm behind it, until it reached the village. 

“ The dam is breaking ! Run for your lives ! ” 
cried Bonnyboy, with a rousing clarion yell which 
rose above all other noises ; and up and down the 
valley the dread tidings spread like wildfire. In an 
instant all was in wildest commotion. Terrified 
mothers, with babes in their arms, came bursting 
out of the houses, and little girls, hugging kittens 
or cages with canary-birds, clung weeping to their 
skirts; shouting men, shrieking women, crying chil- 
dren, barking dogs, gusty showers sweeping from 
nowhere down upon the distracted fugitives, and 
above all the ominous, throbbing, pulsating roar 


BOMNYBOY 


197 


as of a mighty chorus of cataracts. It came nearer 
and nearer. It filled the great vault of the sky with 
a rush as of colossal wing-beats. Then there came 
a deafening creaking and crashing; then a huge 
brownish-white rolling wall, upon which the moon- 
light gleamed for an instant, and then the very 
trump of doom — a writhing, brawling, weltering 
chaos of cattle, dogs, men, lumber, houses, barns, 
whirling and struggling upon the destroying flood. 


VI. 


It was the morning after the disaster. The sun 
rose red and threatening, circled with a ring of fiery 
mist. People encamped upon the hill-side greeted 
each other as on the morn of resurrection. For 
many were found among the living who were being 
mourned as dead. Mothers hugged their children 
with tearful Joy, thanking God that they had been 
spared ; and husbands who had heard through the 
night the agonized cries of their drowning wives, 
finding them at dawn safe and sound, felt as if they 
had recovered them from the very gates of death. 
When all were counted, it was ascertained that but 
very few of the villagers had been overtaken by the 
flood. The timely warning had enabled all to save 
themselves, except some who in their eagerness to 
rescue their goods had lingered too long. Impover- 


198 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


ished most of them were by the loss of their houses 
and cattle. The calamity was indeed overwhelm- 
ing. But when they considered how much greater 
the disaster would have been if the flood had come 
upon them unheralded, they felt that they had 
cause for gratitude in the midst of their sorrow. 
And who was it that brought the tidings that 
snatched them from the jaws of death ? Well, no- 
body knew. He rode too fast. And each was too 
much startled by the message to take note of the 
messenger. But who could he possibly have been ? 
An angel from Heaven, perhaps sent by God in His 
mercy. That was indeed more than likely. The 
belief was at once accepted that the rescuer was an 
angel from heaven. But just then a lumberman 
stepped forward who had worked at the mill and 
said : “ It was Bonnyboy, Grim Carpenter’s son. I 
saw him jump on his gray colt.” 

Bonnyboy, Grim Carpenter’s son . It couldn’t be 
possible. But the lumberman insisted that it was, 
and they had to believe him, though, of course, it 
was a disappointment. But where was Bonnyboy ? 
He deserved thanks, surely. And, moreover, that 
gray colt was a valuable animal. It was to be 
hoped that it was not drowned. 

The water had now subsided, though it yet over- 
flowed the banks ; so that trees, bent and splintered 
by the terrific force of the flood, grew far out in the 
river. The four dams had all been swept away. 


BONNYBOY 


199 


and the tawny torrent ran again with tumultuous 
rapids in its old channel. Of the mills scarcely a 
vestige was left except slight cavities in the banks, 
and a few twisted beams clinging to the rocks where 
they had stood. The ruins of the village, with jag- 
ged chimneys and broken walls, loomed out of a 
half-inundated meadow, through which erratic cur- 
rents were sweeping. Here and there lay a dead 
cow or dog, and in the branches of a maple-tree the 
carcasses of two sheep were entangled. In this 
marshy field a stooping figure was seen wading 
about, as if in search of something. The water broke 
about his knees, and sometimes reached up to his 
waist. He stood like one dazed, and stared into the 
brown swirling torrent. ,Now he poked something 
with his boat-hook, now bent down and pulled some 
dead thing out of a copse of shrubbery in which it 
had been caught. The sun rose higher in the sky, 
and the red vapors were scattered. But still the 
old man trudged wearily about, with the stony stare 
in his eyes, searching for him whom he had lost. 
One company after another now descended from 
the hill-sides, and from the high-lying farms which 
had not been reached by the flood came wagons 
with provisions and clothes, and men and women 
eager and anxious to help. They shouted to the 
old man in the submerged field, and asked what he 
was looking for. But he only shook his head, as if 
he did not understand. 


200 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


“ Why, that is old Grim the carpenter,” said 
someone. “ Has anybody seen Bonnyboy ? ” 

But no one had seen Bonnyboy. 

“ Do you want help ? ” they shouted to Grim ; 
but they got no answer. 

Hour after hour old Grim trudged about in the 
chilly water searching for his son. Then, about 
noon, when he had worked his way far down the 
river, he caught sight of something which made 
his heart stand still. In a brown pool, in which 
a half-submerged willow-tree grew, he saw a large 
grayish shape which resembled a horse. He 
stretched out the boat-hook and rolled it over. 
Dumbly, tearlessly, he stood staring into the pool. 
There lay his son — there lay Bonnyboy stark and 
dead. 

The cold perspiration broke out upon Grim’s 
brow, and his great breast labored. Slowly he 
stooped down, drew the dead body out of the water, 
and tenderly laid it across his knees. He stared 
into the sightless eyes, and murmuring a blessing, 
closed them. There was a large discolored spot on 
the forehead, as of a bruise. Grim laid his hand 
softly upon it, and stroked away the yellow tuft of 
hair. 

“ My poor lad,” he said, while the tears coursed 
down his wrinkled cheeks, “ you had a weak head, 
but your heart, Bonnyboy — your heart was good.” 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


L 


A SUN NY-TEMPERED little fellow was Hans, and 
his father declared that he had brought luck with 
him when he came into the world. 

“ He was such a handsome baby when he was 
born,’’ said Inga, his mother ; “ but you would 
scarcely believe it now, running about as he does 
in forest and field, tearing his clothes and scratching 
his face.” 

Now, it was true, as Hans’s mother said, that he 
did often tear his clothes ; and as he had an indom- 
itable curiosity, and had to investigate everything 
that came in his way, it was also no uncommon 
thing for him to come home with his face stung or 
scratched. 

“ Why must you drag that child with you 
wherever you go. Nils ?” the mother complained to 
Hans’s father, when the little boy was brought to 
her in such a disreputable condition. “ Why can’t 
you leave him at home ? What other man do you 


202 


BOYHOOD IN NOB IV AY 


know who carries a six-year-old little fellow about 
with him in rain and shine, storm and quiet ? ” 

“ Well,” Nils invariably answered, “ I like him 
and he likes me. He brings me luck.” 

This was a standing dispute between Nils and 
Inga, his wife, and they never came to an agree- 
ment. She knew as well as her husband that be- 
fore little Hans was born there was want and 
misery in their cottage. But from the hour the 
child lifted up its tiny voice, announcing its arrival, 
there had been prosperity and contentment. Their 
luck had turned. Nils said, and it was the child that 
had turned it. They had been married for four 
years, and though they had no one to provide for 
but themselves, they scarcely managed to keep body 
and soul together. All sorts of untoward things 
happened. Now a tree which he was cutting down 
fell upon Nils and laid him up for a month ; now 
he got water on his knee from a blow he received 
while rolling logs into the chute ; now the pig died 
which was to have provided them with salt pork 
for the winter, and the hens took to the bush, and 
laid their eggs where nobody except the rats and 
the weasels could find them. But since little Hans 
had come and put an end to all these disasters, his 
father had a superstitious feeling that he could not 
bear to have him away from him. Therefore every 
morning when he started out for the forest or the 
river he carried Hans on his shoulder. And the 


7' HE CHILD OF LUCK 


203 


little boy sat there, smiling proudly and waving his 
hand to his mother, who stood in the door looking 
longingly after him. 

“ Hello, little chap ! ” cried the lumbermen, when 
they saw him. “ Good-morning to you and good 
luck ! ” 

They always cheered up, however bad the 
weather was, when they saw little Hans, for no- 
body could look at his sunny little face without feel- 
ing something like a ray of sunlight stealing into his 
heart. Hans had a smile and a wave of his hand 
for everybody. He knew all the lumbermen by 
name, and they knew him. They sang as they 
swung the axe or the boat-hook, and the work went 
merrily when little Haris sat on the top of the log 
pile and shouted to them. But if by chance he was 
absent for a day or two they missed him. No songs 
were heard, but harsh words, and not infrequently 
quarrels. Now, nobody believed, of course, that 
little Hans was such a wizard that he could make 
people feel and behave any better than it was in 
their nature to do ; but sure it was— at least the 
lumbermen insisted that it was so — there was joy 
and good-tempered mirth wherever that child went, 
and life seemed a little sadder and poorer to those 
who knew him when he was away. 

No one will wonder that Nils sometimes boasted 
of his little son. He told not once, but a hundred 
times,, as they sat about the camp-fire eating their 


204 BOYHOOD m NORWAY 

dinner, that little Hans was a child of luck, and 
that no misfortune could happen while he was near. 
Lumbermen are naturally superstitious, and though 
perhaps at first they m'ay have had their doubts, 
they gradually came to accept the statement with- 
out question. They came to regard it as a kind of 
right to have little Hans sit on the top of the log 
pile when they worked, or running along the chute, 
while the wild-cat strings of logs shot down the 
steep slide with lightning speed. They were not in 
the least afraid lest the \o^s should jump the chute, 
as they had often done before, killing or maiming 
the unhappy man that came too near. For was 
not little Hans’s life charmed, so that no harm 
could befall him ? 

Now, it happened that Inga, little Hans’s mother, 
came one day to the river to see how he was get- 
ting on. Nils was then standing on a raft hooking 
the floating logs with his boat-hook, while the boy 
was watching him from the shore, shouting to him, 
throwing chips into the water, and amusing himself 
as best he could. It was early in May, and the 
river was swollen from recent thaws. Below the 
cataract where the lumbermen worked, the broad, 
brown current moved slowly along with sluggish 
whirls and eddies ; but the raft was moored by 
chains to the shore, so that it was in no danger of 
getting adrift. It was capital fun to see the logs 
come rushing down the slide, plunging with a tre- 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


205 


mendous splash into the river, and then bob up like 
live things after having bumped against the bottom. 
Little Hans clapped his hands and yelled with de- 
light when a string of three or four came tearing 
along in that way, and dived, one after the other, 
headlong into the water. 

“ Catch that one, papa ! ” he cried ; “ that is a 
good big fellow. He dived like a man, he did. He 
has washed the dirt off his snout now ; that was 
the reason he took such a big plunge.” 

Nils never failed to reach his boat-hook after the 
log little Hans indicated, for he liked to humor 
him, and little Hans liked to be humored. He had 
an idea that he was directing his father’s work, and 
Nils invented all sorts of innocent devices to flatter 
little Hans’s dignity, and make him think himself 
indispensable. It was of no use, therefore, for poor 
Inga to beg little Hans to go home with her. He 
had so much to do, he said, that he couldn’t. He 
even tried to tear himself away from his mother 
when she took him by the arm and remonstrated 
with him. And then and there the conviction stole 
upon Inga that her child did not love her. She 
was nothing to him compared to what his father 
was. And was it right for Nils thus to rob her of 
the boy’s affection ? Little Hans could scarcely be 
blamed for loving his father better ; for love is 
largely dependent upon habit, and Nils had been 
his constant companion since he was a year old. A 


2o6 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


bitter sense of loneliness and loss overcame the 
poor wife as she stood on the river-bank pleading 
with her child, and finding that she annoyed instead 
of moving him. 

“Won’t you come home with mamma, little 
Hans?” she asked, tearfully. “The kitten misses 
you very much ; it has been mewing for you all the 
morning.” 

“ No,” said little Hans, thrusting his hands into 
his pockets, and turning about with a manly stride; 
“ we are going to have the lumber inspector here 
to-day, and then papa’s big raft is going down the 
river.” 

“ But this dreadful noise, dear ; how can you 
stand it ? And the logs shooting down that slide 
and making such a racket. And these great piles 
of lumber, Hans — think, if they should tumble 
down and kill you ! ” 

“ Oh, Pm not afraid, mamma,” cried Hans, 
proudly ; and, to show his fearlessness, he climbed 
up the log pile, and soon stood on the top of it, 
waving his cap and shouting. 

“ Oh, do come down, child — do come down ! ” 
begged Inga, anxiously. 

She had scarcely uttered the words when she 
heard a warning shout from the slope above, and 
had just time to lift her eyes, when she saw a big 
black object dart past her, strike the log pile, and 
break with a deafening crash. A long confused 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


207 


rumble of rolling logs followed, terrified voices rent 
the air, and, above it all, the deep and steady roar 
of the cataract. She saw, as through a fog, little 
Hans, serene and smiling as ever, borne down on 
the top of the rolling lumber, now rising up and 
skipping from log to log, now clapping his hands 
and screaming with pleasure, and then suddenly 
vanishing in the brown writhing river. His 
laughter was still ringing in her ears ; the poor 
child, he did not realize his danger. The rumbling 
of falling logs continued with terrifying persistence. 
Splash ! splash ! splash ! they went, diving by 
twos, by fours, and by dozens at the very spot 
where her child had vanished. But where was 
little Hans ? Oh, where was he ? It was all so 
misty, so unreal and confused. She could not tell 
whether little Hans was among the living or among 
the dead. But there, all of a sudden, his head 
popped up in the middle of the river ; and there 
was another head close to his — it was that of his 
father ! And round about them other heads bobbed 
up ; for all the lumbermen who were on the raft 
had plunged into the water with Nils when they 
saw that little Hans was in danger. A dozen more 
were running down the slope as fast as their legs 
could carry them ; and they gave a tremendous 
cheer when they saw little Hans’s face above the 
water. He looked a trifle pale and shivery, and he 
gave a funny little snort, so that the water spurted 


208 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


from his nose. He had lost his hat, but he did not 
seem to be hurt. His little arms clung tightly 
about his father’s neck, while Nils, dodging the 
bobbing logs, struck out with all his might for the 
shore. And when he felt firm bottom under his 
feet, and came stumbling up through the shallow 
water, looking like a drowned rat, what a welcome 
he received from the lumbermen ! They all wanted 
to touch little Hans and pat his cheek, just to 
make sure that it was really he. 

“ It was wonderful indeed,” they said, “ that he 
ever came up out of that horrible jumble of pitch- 
ing and diving logs. He is a child of luck, if ever 
there was one.’* 

Not one of them thought of the boy’s mother, 
and little Hans himself scarcely thought of her, 
elated as he was at the welcome he received from 
the lumbermen. Poor Inga stood dazed, struggling 
with a horrible feeling, seeing her child passed from 
one to the other, while she herself claimed no share 
in him. Somehow the thought stung her. A 
sudden clearness burst upon her ; she rushed for- 
ward, with a piercing scream, snatched little Hans 
from his father’s arms, and hugging his wet little 
shivering form to her breast, fled like a deer 
through the underbrush. 

From that day little Hans was not permitted to 
go to the river. It was in vain that Nils pleaded 
and threatened. His wife acted so unreasonably 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 209 

'when that question was broached that he saw it 
was useless to discuss it. She seized little Hans as 
a tigress might seize her young, and held him tight- 
ly clasped, as if daring anybody to take him away 
from her. Nils knew it would require force to get 
his son back again, and that he was not ready to 
employ. But all joy seemed to have gone out of 
his life since he had lost the daily companionship of 
little Hans. His work became drudgery ; and all 
the little annoyances of life, which formerly he had 
brushed away as one brushes a fly from his nose, 
became burdens and calamities. The raft upon 
which he had expended so much labor went to 
pieces during a sudden rise of the river the night 
after little Hans’s adventure, and three days later 
Thorkel Fossen was killed outright by a string of 
logs that jumped the chute. 

“ It isn’t the same sort of place since you took 
little Hans away,” the lumbermen would often say 
to Nils. “ There’s no sort of luck in anything.” 

Sometimes they taunted him with want of 
courage, and called him a “ night-cap ” and a “ hen- 
pecked coon,” all of which made Nils uncomfortable. 
He made two or three attempts to persuade his 
wife to change her mind in regard to little Hans, 
but the last time she got so frightened that she ran 
out of the house and hid in the cow stable with the 
Doy, crouching in an empty stall, and crying as if her 
heart would break, when little Hans escaped and 
14 


210 


B O YHO 03 IN NOB WA Y 


betrayed her hiding-place. The boy, in fact, sym- 
pathized with his father, and found his confinement 
at home irksome. The companionship of the cat 
had no more charm for him ; and even the brindled 
calf, which had caused such an excitement when he 
first arrived, had become an old story. Little Hans 
fretted, was mischievous for want of better employ- 
ment, and gave his mother no end of trouble. He 
longed for the gay and animated life at the river, 
and he would have run away if he had not been 
watched. He could not imagine how the lumber- 
men could be getting on without him. It seemed 
to him that all work must come to a stop when he 
was no longer sitting on the top of the log piles, or 
standing on the bank throwing chips into the water. 

Now, as a matter of fact, they were not getting 
on very well at the river without little Hans. The 
luck had deserted them, the lumbermen said ; and 
whatever mishaps they had, they attributed to the 
absence of little Hans. They came to look with 
ill-suppressed hostility at Nils, whom they regarded 
as responsible for their misfortunes. For they could 
scarcely believe that he was quite in earnest in his 
desire for the boy’s return, otherwise they could not 
comprehend how his wife could dare to oppose 
him. The weather was stormy, and the mountain 
brook which ran along the slide concluded to waste 
no more labor in carving out a bed for itself in the 
rock, when it might as well be using the slide which 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


21 1 

it found ready made. And one fine day it broke 
into the slide and half filled it, so that the logs, 
when they were started down the steep incline, sent 
the water flying, turned somersaults, stood on end, 
and played no end of dangerous tricks which no one 
could foresee. Several men were badly hurt by 
beams shooting like rockets through the air, and 
old Mads Furubakken was knocked senseless and 
carried home for dead. Then the lumbermen held a 
council, and made up their minds to get little Hans 
by fair means or foul. They thought first of send- 
ing a delegation of four or five men that very morn- 
ing, but finally determined to march up to Nils’s 
cottage in a body and demand the boy. There 
were twenty of them at the very least, and the tops 
of their long boat-hooks, which they carried on their 
shoulders, were seen against the green forest before 
they were themselves visible. 

Nils, who was just out of bed, was sitting on the 
threshold smoking his pipe and pitching a ball to 
little Hans, who laughed with delight whenever he 
caught it. Inga was bustling about inside the 
house, preparing breakfast, which was to consist of 
porridge, salt herring, and baked potatoes. It had 
rained during the night, and the sky was yet over- 
cast, but the sun was struggling to break through 
the cloud-banks. A couple of thrushes in the alder- 
bushes about the cottage were rejoicing at the 
change in the weather, and Nils was listening to 


212 


BOYHOOD m NORWAY 


their song and to his son’s merry prattle, when he 
caught sight of the twenty lumbermen marching up 
the hillside. He rose, with some astonishment, and 
went to meet them. Inga, hearing their voices, 
came to the door, and seeing the many men, 
snatched up little Hans, and with a wildly palpi- 
tating heart ran into the cottage, bolting the door 
behind her. She had a vague foreboding that this 
unusual visit meant something hostile to herself, 
and she guessed that Nils had been only the 
spokesman of his comrades in demanding so eagerly 
the return of the boy to the river. She believed 
all their talk about his luck to be idle nonsense ; 
but she knew that Nils had unwittingly spread this 
belief, and that the lumbermen were convinced that 
little Hans was their good genius, whose presence 
averted disaster. Distracted with fear and anxiety, 
she stood pressing her ear against the crack in the 
door, and sometimes peeping out to see what meas- 
ures she must take for the child’s safety. Would 
Nils stand by her, or would he desert her ? But 
surely — what was Nils thinking about ? He was 
extending his hand to each of the men, and receiv- 
ing them kindly. Next he would be inviting them 
to come in and take little Hans. She saw one of 
the men — Stubby Mons by name — step forward, 
and she plainly heard him say : 

“ We miss the little chap down at the river, Nils. 
The luck has been against us since he left.” 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


213 


“ Well, Mons,” Nils answered, “ I miss the little 
chap as much as any of you ; perhaps more. But 
my wife — she's got a sort of crooked notion that the 
boy won’t come home alive if she lets him goto 
the river. She got a bad scare last time, and it 
isn’t any use arguing with her.” 

“But won’t you let us talk to her, Nils?” one 
of the lumbermen proposed. “ It is a tangled 
skein, and I don’t pretend to say that I can 
straighten it out. But two men have been killed 
and one crippled since the little chap was taken 
away. And in the three years he was with us no 
untoward thing happened. Now that speaks for 
itself. Nils, doesn’t it?” 

“ It does, indeed,” said Nils, with an air of con- 
viction. 

“ And you’ll let us talk to your wife, and see if 
we can’t make her listen to reason,” the man urged. 

“ You are welcome to talk to her as much as you 
like,” Nils replied, knocking out his pipe on the 
heel of his boot ; “ but I warn you that she’s mighty 
cantankerous.” 

He rose slowly, and tried to open the door. It 
was locked. “ Open, Inga,” he said, a trifle impa- 
tiently ; “ there are some men here who want to 
see you.” 


214 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


II. 

Inga sat crouching on the hearth, hugging little 
Hans to her bosom. She shook and trembled with 
fear, let her eyes, wander around the walls, and now 
and then moaned at the thought that now they 
would take little Hans away from her. 

“ Why don’t you open the door for papa ? ” asked 
little Hans, wonderingly. 

Ah, he too was against her ! All the world was 
against her ! And her husband was in league with 
her enemies ! 

“ Open, I say ! ” cried Nils, vehemently. “ What 
do you mean by locking the door when decent 
people come to call upon us ? ” 

Should she open the door or should she not ? 
Holding little Hans in her arms, she rose hesitat- 
ingly, and stretched out her hand toward the bolt. 
But all of a sudden, in a paroxysm of fear, she with- 
drew her hand, turned about, and fled with the 
child through the back door. The alder bushes 
grew close up to the walls of the cottage, and by 
stooping a little she managed to remain unobserved. 
Her greatest difficulty was to keep little Hans from 
shouting to his father, and she had to put her hand 
over his mouth to keep him quiet ; for the boy, who 
had heard the voices without, could not understand 
why he should not be permitted to go out and con> 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


215 


verse with his friends the lumbermen. The wild 
eyes and agitated face of his mother distressed him, 
and the little showers of last night’s rain which the 
trees shook down upon him made him shiver. 

“ Why do you run so, mamma ? ” he asked, when 
she removed her hand from his mouth. 

“ Because the bad men want to take you away 
from me, Hans,” she answered, panting. 

“ Those were not bad men, mamma,” the boy 
ejaculated. “ That was Stubby Mons and Stutter- 
ing Peter and Lars Skin-breeches. They don’t 
want to hurt me.” 

He expected that his mamma would be much re- 
lieved at receiving this valuable information, and re- 
turn home without delay. But she still pressed on, 
flushed and panting, and cast the same anxious 
glances behind her. 

In the meanwhile Nils and his guests had entire- 
ly lost their patience. Finding his persuasions of no 
avail, the former began to thump at the door with 
the handle of his axe, and receiving no response, he 
climbed up to the window and looked in. To his 
amazement there was no one in the room. Think- 
ing that Inga might have gone to the cow-stable, he 
ran to the rear of the cottage, and called her name. 
Still no answer. 

“ Hans,” he cried, “ where are you ? ” 

But Hans, too, was as if spirited away. It scarce- 
ly occurred to Nils, until he had searched the cow- 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


2:^ 

Stable and the house in vain, that his wife had fled 
from the harmless lumbermen. Then the thought 
shot through his brain that possibly she was not 
quite right in her head ; that this fixed idea that 
everybody wanted to take her child away from her 
had unsettled her reason. Nils grew hot and cold 
in the same moment as this dreadful apprehension 
took lodgement in his mind. Might she not, in her 
confused effort to save little Hans, do him harm ? 
In the blind and feverish terror which possessed her 
might she not rush into the water, or leap over a 
precipice ? Visions of little Hans drowning, or 
whirled into the abyss in his mother’s arms, crowd- 
ed his fancy as he walked back to the lumbermen, 
and told them that neither his wife nor child was 
anywhere to be found. 

“ I would ask ye this, lads,” he said, finally : ‘‘ if 
you would help me search for them. For Inga — I 
reckon she is a little touched in the upper story — 
she has gone off with the boy, and I can’t get on 
without little Hans any more than you can.” 

The men understood the situation at a glance, 
and promised their aid. They had all looked upon 
Inga as “ high-strung ” and ‘‘ queer,” and it did not 
surprise them to hear that she had been frightened 
out of her wits at their request for the loan of little 
Hans. Forming a line, with a space of twenty feet 
between each man, they began to beat the bush, 
climbing^ the steep slope toward the nn.ountains 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


217 


Inga, pausing for an instant, and peering out be- 
tween the tree trunks, saw the alder bushes wave as 
they broke through the underbrush. She knew 
now that she was pursued. Tired she was, too, and 
the boy grew heavier for every step that she ad- 
vanced. And yet if she made him walk, he might 
run away from her. If he heard his father’s voice, 
he would be certain to answer. Much perplexed, 
she looked about her for a hiding-place. For, as 
the men would be sure to overtake her, her only 
safety was in hiding. With tottering knees she 
stumbled along, carrying the heavy child, grabbing 
hold of the saplings for support, and yet scarcely 
keeping from falling. The cold perspiration broke 
from her brow and a strange faintness overcame her. 

“ You will have to walk, little Hans,” she said, at 
last. “ But if you run away from me, dear, I shall 
lie down here and die.” 

Little Hans promised that he would not run 
away, and for five minutes they walked up a stony 
path which looked like the abandoned bed of a 
brook. 

“ You hurt my hand, mamma,” whimpered the 
boy, “ you squeeze so hard.” 

She would have answered, but just then she 
heard the voices of the lumbermen scarcely fifty 
paces away. With a choking sensation and a stitch 
in her side she pressed on, crying out in spirit for 
the hills to hide her and the mountains to open 


218 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


their gates and receive her. Suddenly she stood 
before a rocky wall some eighty or a hundred feet 
high. She could go no farther. Her strength was 
utterly exhausted. There was a big boulder lying 
at the base of the rock, and a spreading juniper 
half covered it. Knowing that in another minute 
she would be discovered, she flung herself down 
behind the boulder, though the juniper needles 
scratched her face, and pulled little Hans down at 
her side. But, strange to say, little Hans fell 
farther than she had calculated, and utterly van- 
ished from sight. She heard a muffled cry, and 
reaching her hand in the direction where he had 
fallen, caught hold of his arm. A strong, wild 
smell beat against her, and little Hans, as he was 
pulled out, was enveloped in a most unpleasant 
odor. But odor or no odor, here was the very 
hiding-place she had been seeking. A deserted 
wolf’s den, it was, probably — at least she hoped it 
was deserted ; for if it was not, she might be con- 
fronted with even uglier customers than the lum- 
bermen. But she had no time for debating the 
question, for she saw the head of Stubby Mons 
emerging from the leaves, and immediately behind 
him came Stuttering Peter, with his long boat- 
hook. Quick as a flash she slipped into the hole, 
and dragged Hans after her. The juniper-bush en- 
tirely covered the entrance. She could see every- 
one who approached, without being seen. Unhap- 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


219 


pily, the boy too caught sight of Stubby Mons, and 
called him by name. The lumberman stopped and 
pricked up his ears. 

“ Did you hear anybody call ? ” he asked his com- 
panion. 

“ N-n-n-n-aw, I d-d-d-d*didn’t,” answered Stutter- 
ing Peter. There b-be lots of qu-qu-qu-qu-eer 
n-noises in the w-w-w-woods.” 

Little Hans heard every word that they spoke, 
and he would have cried out again, if it hadn’t ap- 
peared such great fun to be playing hide-and-go- 
seek with the lumbermen. He had a delicious 
sense of being well hidden, and had forgotten every- 
thing except the zest of the game. Most exciting 
it became when Stubby Mons drew the juniper- 
bush aside and peered eagerly behind the boulder. 
Inga’s heart stuck in her throat ; she felt sure that 
in the next instant they would be discovered. And 
as ill-luck would have it, there was something alive 
scrambling about her feet and tugging at her skirts. 
Suddenly she felt a sharp bite, but clinched her 
teeth, and uttered no sound. When her vision 
again cleared, the juniper branch had rebounded 
into its place, and the face of Stubby Mons was 
gone. She drew a deep breath of relief, but yet 
did not dare to emerge from the den. For one, two, 
three tremulous minutes she remained motionless, 
feeling all the while that uncomfortable sensation of 
living things about her. 


220 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


At last she could endure it no longer. Thrusting 
little Hans before her, she crawled out of the hole, 
and looked back into the small cavern. As soon 
as her eyes grew accustomed to the twilight she 
uttered a cry of amazement, for out from her skirts 
jumped a little gray furry object, and two frisky 
little customers of the same sort were darting about 
among the stones and tree- roots. The truth 
dawned upon her, and it chilled her to the marrow 
of her bones. The wolf’s den was not deserted. 
The old folks were only out hunting, and the shout- 
ing and commotion of the searching party had 
probably prevented them from returning in time to 
look after their family. She seized little Hans by 
the hand, and once more dragged him away over 
the rough path. He soon became tired and fretful, 
and in spite of all her entreaties began to shout 
lustily for his father. But the men were now so 
far away that they could not hear him. He com- 
plained of hunger ; and when presently they came 
to a blueberry patch, she flung herself down on the 
heather and allowed him to pick berries. She 
heard cow-bells and sheep-bells tinkling round 
about her, and concluded that she could not be 
far from the saeters, or mountain dairies. That 
was fortunate, indeed, for she would not have liked 
to sleep in the woods with wolves and bears prowl- 
ing about her. 

She was just making an effort to rise from the 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


221 


stone upon which she was sitting, when the big, 
good-natured face of a cow broke through the 
leaves and stared at her. There was again help in 
need. She approached the cow, patted it, and 
calling little Hans, bade him sit down in the 
heather and open his mouth. He obeyed rather 
wonderingly, but perceived his mother’s intent 
when she knelt at his side and began to milk into 
his mouth. It seemed to him that he had never 
tasted anything so delicious as this fresh rich milk, 
fragrant with the odor of the woods and the suc- 
culent mountain grass. When his hunger was sat- 
isfied, he fell again to picking berries, while Inga 
refreshed herself with milk in the same simple fash- 
ion. After having rested a full hour, she felt strong 
enough to continue her journey ; and hearing the 
loor, or Alpine horn, re-echoing among the moun- 
tains, she determined to follow the sound. It was 
singular what luck attended her in the midst of her 
misfortune. Perhaps it was, after all, no idle tale 
that little Hans was a child of luck ; and she had 
done the lumbermen injustice in deriding their faith 
in him. Perhaps there was some guiding Provi- 
dence in all that had happened, destined in the end 
to lead little Hans to fortune and glory. Much 
encouraged by this thought, she stooped over him 
and kissed him ; then took his hand and trudged 
along over logs and stones, through juniper and 
bramble bushes. 


222 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


“Mamma,” said little Hans, “where are you 
going ? ” 

“lam going to the saeter^' she answered; 
“ where you have wanted so often to go.” 

“ Then why don’t you follow the cows ? They 
are going there too.” 

Surely that child had a marvellous mind ! She 
smiled down upon him and nodded. By following 
the cows they arrived in twenty minutes at a neat 
little log cabin, from which the smoke curled up 
gayly into the clear air. 

The dairy-maids who spent the summer there 
tending the cattle both fell victims to the charms 
of little Hans, and offered him and his mother their 
simple hospitality. They told of the lumbermen 
who had passed the saeter huts, and inquired for 
her ; but otherwise they respected her silence, and 
made no attempt to pry into her secrets. The next 
morning she started, after a refreshing sleep, west- 
ward toward the coast, where she hoped in some 
way to find a passage to America. For if little 
Hans was really born under a lucky star — which 
fact she now could scarcely doubt — then Amer- 
ica was the place for him. There he might rise 
to become President, or a judge, or a parson, or 
something or other; while in Norway he would 
never be anything but a lumberman like his fa- 
ther. Inga had a well-to-do sister, who was a 
widow, in the nearest town, and she would borrow 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 22 $ 

enough money from her to pay their passage to 
New York. 

It was early in July when little Hans and his 
mother arrived in New York. The latter had re- 
pented bitterly of her rashness in stealing her child 
from his father, and under a blind impulse travers- 
ing half the globe in a wild-goose chase after for- 
tune. The world was so much bigger than she in 
her quiet valley had imagined ; and, what was 
worse, it wore such a cold and repellent look, and 
was so bewildering and noisy. Inga had been very 
sea-sick during the voyage ; and after she stepped 
ashore from the tug that brought her to Castle 
Garden, the ground kept heaving and swelling under 
her feet, and made her dizzy and miserable. She 
had been very wicked, she was beginning to think, 
and deserved punishment ; and if it had not been 
for a vague and adventurous faith in the great fut- 
ure that was in store for her son, she would have 
been content to return home, do penance for her 
folly, and beg her husband’s forgiveness. But, in 
the first place, she had no money to pay for a re- 
turn ticket ; and, secondly, it would be a great pity 
to deprive little Hans of the Presidency and all the 
grandeur that his lucky star might here bring him. 

Inga was just contemplating this bright vision of 
Hans’s future, when she found herself passing 
through a gate, at which a clerk was seated. 


224 


BOYHOOD IN NOKH^AV 


“ What is your name ? ” he asked, through an 
interpreter. 

“ Inga Olsdatter Pladsen.” 

“Age?” 

“ Twenty-eight a week after Michaelmas.** 

“ Single or married ? ” 

“ Married.” 

“ Where is your husband ? ” 

“ In Norway.” 

“ Are you divorced from him ? ” 

“ Divorced — I ! Why, no ! Who ever heard of 
such a thing ? ” 

Inga grew quite indignant at the thought of her 
being divorced. A dozen other questions were 
asked, at each of which her embarrassment in- 
creased. When, finally, she declared that she had 
no money, no definite destination, and no relatives 
or friends in the country, the examination was cut 
short, and after an hour’s delay and a wearisome 
cross-questioning by different officials, she was put 
on board the tug, and returned to the steamer in 
which she had crossed the ocean. Four dreary days 
passed ; then there was a tremendous commotion 
on deck : blowing of whistles, roaring of steam, 
playing of bands, bumping of trunks and boxes, and 
finally the steady pulsation of the engines as the 
big ship stood out to sea. After nine days of dis- 
comfort in the stuffy steerage and thirty-six hours 
of downright misery while crossing the stormy 


THE CHILD OF LUCK 


225 


North Sea, Inga found herself once more in the 
land of her birth. Full of humiliation and shame 
she met her husband at the railroad station, and 
prepared herself for a deluge of harsh words and 
reproaches. But instead of that he patted her 
gently on the head, and clasped little Hans in his 
arms and kissed him. They said very little to 
each other as they rode homeward in the cars ; but 
little Hans had a thousand things to tell, and his 
father was delighted to hear them. In the even- 
ing, when they had reached their native valley, 
and the boy was asleep, Inga plucked up courage 
and said, “ Nils, it is all a mistake about little 
Hans’s luck.” 

“ Mistake ! Why, no,” cried Nils. “ What 
greater luck could he have than to be brought 
safely home to his father ? ” 

Inga had indeed hoped for more ; but she said 
nothing. Nevertheless, fate still had strange things 
in store for little Hans. The story of his mother’s 
flight to and return from America was picked up by 
some enterprising journalist, who made a most 
touching romance of it. Hundreds of inquiries re- 
garding little Hans poured in upon the pastor and 
the postmaster; and offers to adopt him, educate 
him, and I know not what else, were made to his 
parents. But Nils would hear of no adoption ; 
nor would he consent to any plan that separated 
him from the boy. When, however, he was given 
16 


226 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


a position as superintendent of a lumber yard in 
the town, and prosperity began to smile upon him, 
he sent little Hans to school, and as Hans was a 
clever boy, he made the most of his opportunities. 

And now little Hans is indeed a very big Hans, 
but a child of luck he is yet ; for I saw him referred 
to the other day in the newspapers as one of the 
greatest lumber dealers, and one of the noblest, 
most generous, and public-spirited men in Norway. 


THE BEAR THAT HAD A BANK AC- 
COUNT 


L 

You may not believe it, but the bear I am going 
to tell you about really had a bank account ! He 
lived in the woods, as most bears do ; but he had a 
reputation which extended over all Norway and 
more than half of England. Earls and baronets 
came every summer, with repeating-rifles of the 
latest patent, and plaids and field-glasses and port- 
able cooking-stoves, intent upon killing him. But 
Mr. Bruin, whose only weapons were a pair of 
paws and a pair of jaws, both uncommonly good of 
their kind, though not patented, always managed to 
get away unscathed ; and that was sometimes more 
than the earls and the baronets did. 

One summer the Crown Prince of Germany 
came to Norway. He also heard of the famous 
bear that no one could kill, and made up his mind 
that he was the man to kill it. He trudged for 
two days through bogs, and climbed through glens 
and ravines, before he came on the scent of a bear, 


228 


BOYHOOD IN’ NORWAY 


and a bear’s scent, you may know, is strong, and 
quite unmistakable. Finally he discovered some 
tracks in the moss, like those of a barefooted man, 
or, I should rather say, perhaps, a man-footed bear. 
The Prince was just turning the corner of a project- 
ing rock, when he saw a huge, shaggy beast stand- 
ing on its hind legs, examining in a leisurely manner 
the inside of a hollow tree, while a swarm of bees 
were buzzing about its ears. It was just hauling 
out a handful of honey, and was smiling with a 
grewsome mirth, when His Royal Highness sent it 
a bullet right in the breast, where its heart must 
have been, if it had one. But, instead of falling 
down flat, as it ought to have done, out of defer- 
ence to the Prince, it coolly turned its back, and 
gave its assailant a disgusted nod over its shoulder 
as it trudged away through the underbrush. The 
attendants ranged through the woods and beat the 
bushes in all directions, but Mr. Bruin was no more 
to be seen that afternoon. It was as if he had sunk 
into the earth ; not a trace of him was to be found 
by either dogs or men. 

From that time forth the rumor spread abroad 
that this Gausdale Bruin (for that was the name by 
which he became known) was enchanted. It was 
said that he shook off bullets as a duck does water ; 
that he had the evil eye, and could bring misfort- 
une to whomsoever he looked upon. The peasants 
dreaded to meet him, and ceased to hunt him. His 


THE BEAR THAT HAD A BANK ACCOUNT 229 

size was described as something enormous, his 
teeth, his claws, and his eyes as being diabolical be- 
yond human conception. In the meanwhile Mr. 
Bruin had it all his own way in the mountains, 
killed a young bull or a fat heifer for his dinner 
every day or two, chased in pure sport a herd of 
sheep over a precipice; and as for Lars ,Moe’s bay 
mare Stella, he nearly finished her, leaving his claw- 
marks on her flank in a way that spoiled her beauty 
forever. 

Now Lars Moe himself was too old to hunt ; 
and his nephew was — well, he was not old enough. 
There was, in fact, no one in the valley who was of 
the right age to hunt this Gausdale Bruin. It was 
of no use that Lars Moe egged on the young lads to 
try their luck, shaming them, or offering them re- 
wards, according as his mood might happen to be. 
He was the wealthiest man in the valley, and his 
mare Stella had been the apple of his eye. He felt 
it as a personal insult that the bear should have 
dared to molest what belonged to him, especially 
the most precious of all his possessions. It cut him 
to the heart to see the poor wounded beauty, with 
those cruel scratches on her thigh, and one stiff, 
aching leg done up in oil and cotton. When he 
opened the stable-door, and was greeted by Stella’s 
low, friendly neighing, or when she limped forward 
in her box-stall and put her small, clean-shaped 
head on his shoulder^ then Tars Moe’s heart swelled 


230 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


until it seemed on the point of breaking. And so 
it came to pass that he added a codicil to his will, 
setting aside five hundred dollars of his estate as a 
reward to the man who, within six years, should 
kill the Gausdale Bruin. 

Soon after that, Lars Moe died, as some said, 
from grief and chagrin ; though the physician af- 
firmed that it was of rheumatism of the heart. At 
any rate, the codicil relating to the enchanted bear 
was duly read before the church door, and pasted, 
among other legal notices, in the vestibules of the 
judge’s and the sheriff’s offices. When the execu- 
tors had settled up the estate, the question arose in 
whose name or to whose credit should be deposited 
the money which was to be set aside for the benefit 
of the bear-slayer. No one knew who would kill 
the bear, or if any one would kill it. It was a puz- 
zling question. 

“ Why, deposit it to the credit of the bear,” said 
a jocose executor ; “ then, in the absence of other 
heirs, his slayer will inherit it. That is good old 
Norwegian practice, though I don’t know whether 
it has ever been the law.” 

“ All right,” said the other executors, “ so long 
as it is understood who is to have the money, it 
does not matter.” 

And so an amount equal to $5CX) was deposited 
in the county bank to the credit of the Gausdale 
Bruin. Sir Barry Worthington, Bart., who came 


THE BEAR THAT HAD A BANK ACCOUNT 23 1 

abroad the following summer for the shooting, 
heard the story, and thought it a good one. So, 
after having vainly tried to earn the prize himself, 
he added another $5CX) to the deposit, with the 
stipulation that he was to have the skin. 

But his rival for parliamentary honors, Robert 
Stapleton, Esq., the great iron-master, who had 
come to Norway chiefly to outshine Sir Barry, de- 
termined that he was to have the skin of that 
famous bear, if any one was to have it, and that, at 
all events, Sir Barry should not have it. So Mr. 
Stapleton added $750 to the bear’s bank account, 
with the stipulation that the skin should come to 
him. 

Mr. Bruin, in the meanwhile, as if to resent this 
unseemly contention about his pelt, made worse 
havoc among the herds than ever, and compelled 
several peasants to move their dairies to other 
parts of the mountains, where the pastures were 
poorer, but where they would be free from his 
depredations. If the $1,750 in the bank had been 
meant as a bribe or a stipend for good behavior, 
such as was formerly paid to Italian brigands, it 
certainly could not have been more demoralizing 
in its effect ; for all agreed that, since Lars Moe’s 
death, Bruin misbehaved worse than ever. 


232 


B 0 Y HO OD IN NOR WA Y 


II. 


There was an odd clause in Lars Moe’s will be- 
sides the codicil relating to the bear. It read : 

“ I hereby give and bequeath to my daughter Unna, or, 
in case of her decease, to her oldest living issue, my bay 
mare Stella, as a token that I have forgiven her the sorrow 
she caused me by her marriage.” 

It seemed incredible that Lars Moe should wish 
to play a practical joke (and a bad one at that) on 
his only child, his daughter Unna, because she had 
displeased him by her marriage. Yet that was the 
common opinion in the valley when this singular 
clause became known. Unna had married Thorkel 
Tomlevold, a poor tenant’s son, and had refused 
her cousin, the great lumber-dealer, Morten Janson, 
whom her father had selected for a son-in-law. 

She dwelt now in a tenant’s cottage, northward 
in the parish ; and her husband, who was a sturdy 
and fine-looking fellow, eked out a living by hunt- 
ing and fishing. But they surely had no accommo- 
dations for a broken-down, wounded, trotting mare, 
which could not even draw a plough. It is true 
Unna, in the days of her girlhood, had been very 
fond of the mare, and it is only charitable to sup- 
pose that the clause, which was in the body of the 
will, was written while Stella was in her prime. 


THE BEAR THAT HAD A BANK ACCOUNT 233 

and before she had suffered at the paws of the 
Gausdale Bruin. But even granting that, one 
could scarcely help suspecting malice aforethought 
in the curious provision. To Unna the gift was 
meant to say, as plainly as possible, “ There, you 
see what you have lost by disobeying your father ! 
If you had married according to his wishes, you 
would have been able to accept the gift, while now 
you are obliged to decline it like a beggar.” 

But if it was Lars Moe’s intention to convey 
such a message to his daughter, he failed to take into 
account his daughter’s spirit. She appeared plainly 
but decently dressed at the reading of the will, and 
carried her head not a whit less haughtily than 
was her wont in her maiden days. She exhibited 
no chagrin when she found that Janson was her 
father’s heir and that she was disinherited. She 
even listened with perfect composure to the reading 
of the clause which bequeathed to her the broken- 
down mare. 

It at once became a matter of pride with her 
to accept her girlhood’s favorite, and accept it she 
did ! And having borrowed a side-saddle, she rode 
home, apparently quite contented. A little shed, 
or lean-to, was built in the rear of the house, and 
Stella became a member of Thorkel Tomlevold’s 
family. Odd as it may seem, the fortunes of the 
family took a turn for the better from the day she 
arrived ; Thorkel rarely came home without big 


^34 


BOYHOOD m NORWAY 


game, and in his traps he caught more than any 
three other men in all the parish. 

“ The mare has brought us luck,” he said to his 
wife. “ If she can’t plough, she can at all events 
pull the sleigh to church ; and you have as good a 
right as any one to put on airs, if you choose.” 

“ Yes, she has brought us blessing,” replied Unna, 
quietly ; ‘‘ and we are going to keep her till she 
dies of old age.” 

To the children Stella became a pet, as much as 
if she had been a dog or a cat. The little boy 
Lars climbed all over her, and kissed her regularly 
good-morning when she put her handsome head in 
through the kitchen-door to get her lump of sugar. 
She was as gentle as a lamb and as intelligent as a 
dog. Her great brown eyes, with their soft, liquid 
look, spoke as plainly as words could speak, expres- 
sing pleasure when she was patted ; and the low 
neighing with which she greeted the little boy, 
when she heard his footsteps in the door, was to 
him like the voice of a friend. He grew to love 
this handsome and noble animal as he had loved 
nothing on earth except his father and mother. 

As a matter of course he heard a hundred times 
the story of Stella’s adventure with the terrible 
Gausdale bear. It was a story that never lost its 
interest, that seemed to grow more exciting the 
oftener it was told. The deep scars of the bear’s 
claws in Stella’s thigh were curiously examined, 


THE BEAR THAT HAD A BANK ACCOUNT 2 $$ 


and each time gave rise to new questions. The 
mare became quite a heroic character, and the sug- 
gestion was frequently discussed between Lars and 
his little sister Marit, whether Stella might not be 
an enchanted princess who was waiting for some 
one to cut off her head, so that she might show 
herself in her glory. Marit thought the experi- 
ment well worth trying, but Lars had his doubts, 
and was unwilling to take the risk ; yet if she 
brought luck, as his mother said, then she certainly 
must be something more than an ordinary horse. 

Stella had dragged little Lars out of the river 
when he fell overboard from the pier ; and that, 
too, showed more sense than he had ever known a 
horse to have. 

There could be no doubt in his mind that Stella 
was an enchanted princess. And instantly the 
thought occurred to him that the dreadful en- 
chanted bear with the evil eye was the sorcerer, 
and that, when he was killed, Stella would resume 
her human guise. It soon became clear to him that 
he was the boy to accomplish this heroic deed ; and 
it was equally plain to him that he must keep his 
purpose secret from all except Marit, as his mother 
would surely discourage him from engaging in so 
perilous an enterprise. First of all, he had to learn 
how to shoot ; and his father, who was the best shot 
in the valley, was very willing to teach him. It 
seemed quite natural to Thorkel that a hunter’s 


236 BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 

son should take readily to the rifle ; and it gave 
him great satisfaction to see how true his boy’s aim 
was, and how steady his hand. 

“ Father,” said Lars one day, “ you shoot so well, 
why haven’t you ever tried to kill the Gausdale 
Bruin that hurt Stella so badly ? ” 

‘‘ Hush, child ! you don’t know what you are 
talking about,” answered his father; ‘‘no leaden 
bullet will harm that wicked beast.” 

“ Why not ? ” 

“I don’t like to talk about it — but it is well 
known that he is enchanted.” 

“ But will he then live for ever ? Is there no 
sort of bullet that will kill him ? ” asked the boy. 

“ I don’t know. I don’t want to have anything 
to do with witchcraft,” said Thorkel. 

The word “ witchcraft ” set the boy to thinking, 
and he suddenly remembered that he had been 
warned not to speak to an old woman named 
Martha Pladsen, because she was a witch. Now, 
she was probably the very one who could tell him 
what he wanted to know. Her cottage lay close 
up under the mountain-side, about two miles from 
his home. He did not deliberate long before going 
to seek this mysterious person, about whom the 
most remarkable stories were told in the valley. 
To his astonishment, she received him kindly, gave 
him a cup of coffee with rock candy, and declared 
that she had long expected him. The bullet which 


THE BEAR THAT HAD A BANK ACCOUNT 237 

was to slay the enchanted bear had long been in 
her possession ; and she would give it to him if he 
would promise to give her the beast’s heart. He 
did not have to be asked twice for that ; and off he 
started gayly with his prize in his pocket. It was 
rather an odd-looking bullet, made of silver, marked 
with a cross on one side and with a lot of queer 
illegible figures on the other. It seemed to burn in 
his pocket, so anxious was he to start out at once 
to release the beloved Stella from the cruel en- 
chantment. But Martha had said that the bear 
could only be killed when the moon was full ; and 
until the moon was full he accordingly had to 
bridle his impatience. 


III. 

It was a bright morning in January, and, as ft 
happened, Lars’s fourteenth birthday. To his great 
delight, his mother had gone down to the judge’s 
to sell some ptarmigans, and his father had gone 
to fell some timber up in the glen. Accordingly 
he could secure the rifle without being observed. 
He took an affectionate good-by of Stella, who 
rubbed her soft nose against his own, playfully 
pulled at his coat-collar, and blew her sweet, warm 
breath into his face. Lars was a simple-hearted 
boy, in spite of his age, and quite a child at heart. 
He had lived so secluded from all society, and 


23B 


B O YHO OD IN NOR WA Y 


breathed so long the atmosphere of fairy tales, that 
he could see nothing at all absurd in what he was 
about to undertake. The youngest son in the 
story-book always did just that sort of thing, and 
everybody praised and admired him for it. Lars 
meant, for once, to put the story-book hero into 
the shade. He engaged little Marit to watch over 
Stella while he was gone, and under no circum- 
stances to betray him — all of which Marit solemnly 
promised. 

With his rifle on his shoulder and his skees on 
his feet, Lars glided slowly along over the glittering 
surface of the snow, for the mountain was steep, 
and he had to zigzag in long lines before he reached 
the upper heights, where the bear was said to have 
his haunts. The place where Bruin had his win- 
ter den had once been pointed out to him, and 
he remembered yet how pale his father was, when 
he found that he had strayed by chance into so 
dangerous a neighborhood. Lars’s heart, too, beat 
rather uneasily as he saw the two heaps of stones, 
called “ The Parson ” and “ The Deacon,” and the 
two huge fir-trees which marked the dreaded spot. 
It had been customary from immemorial time for 
each person who passed along the road to throw a 
large stone on the Parson’s heap, and a small one 
on the Deacon’s ; but since the Gausdale Bruin 
had gone into winter quarters there, the stone heap?* 
had ceased to grow, 


THE BEAR THAT HAD A BANK ACCOUNT 239 

Under the great knotted roots of the fir-trees 
there was a hole, which was more than half-covered 
with snow ; and it was noticeable that there was 
not a track of bird or beast to be seen anywhere 
around it. Lars, who on the way had been buoyed 
up by the sense of his heroism, began now to feel 
strangely uncomfortable. It was so awfully hushed 
and still round about him ; not the scream of a bird 
— not even the falling of a broken bough was to be 
heard. The pines stood in lines and in clumps, 
solemn, like a funeral procession, shrouded in sepul- 
chral white. Even if a crow had cawed it would 
have been a relief to the frightened boy — for it 
must be confessed that he was a trifle frightened — 
if only a little shower of snow had fallen upon his 
head from the heavily laden branches, he would 
have been grateful for it, for it would have broken 
the spell of this oppressive silence. 

There could be no doubt of it; inside, under 
those tree-roots slept Stella’s foe — the dreaded en- 
chanted beast who had put the boldest of hunters 
to flight, and set lords and baronets by the ears for 
the privilege of possessing his skin. Lars became 
suddenly aware that it was a foolhardy thing he 
had undertaken, and that he had better betake 
himself home. But then, again, had not Witch- 
Martha said that she had been waiting for him ; 
that he was destined by fate to accomplish this 
deed, just as the youngest son had been in the 


240 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


story-book. Yes, to be sure, she had said that ; 
and it was a comforting thought. 

Accordingly, having again examined his rifle, 
which he had carefully loaded with the silver bul- 
let before leaving home, he started boldly forward, 
climbed up on the little hillock between the two 
trees, and began to pound it lustily with the butt- 
end of his gun. He listened for a moment tremu- 
lously, and heard distinctly long, heavy sighs from 
within. 

His heart stood still. The bear was awake ! 
Soon he would have to face it ! A minute more 
elapsed ; Lars’s heart shot up into his throat. He 
leaped down, placed himself in front of the entrance 
to the den, and cocked his rifle. Three long min- 
utes passed. Bruin had evidently gone to sleep 
again. Wild with excitement, the boy rushed for- 
ward and drove his skee-staff straight into the den 
with all his might. A sullen growl was heard, like 
a deep and menacing thunder. There could be no 
doubt that now the monster would take him to 
task for his impertinence. 

Again the boy seized his rifle ; and his nerves, 
though tense as stretched bow-strings, seemed 
suddenly calm and steady. He lifted the rifle to 
his cheek, and resolved not to shoot until he had a 
clear aim at heart or brain. Bruin, though Lars 
could hear him rummaging within, was in no hurry 
to come out. But he sighed and growled uproari- 


THE BEAR THAT HAD A BANK ACCOUNT 24 1 

ously, and presently showed a terrible, long-clawed 
paw, which he thrust out through his door and 
then again withdrew. But apparently it took him 
a long while to get his mind clear as to the cause 
of the disturbance; for fully five minutes had 
elapsed when suddenly a big tuft of moss was 
tossed out upon the snow, followed by a cloud of 
dust and an angry creaking of the tree-roots. 

Great masses of snow were shaken from the 
swaying tops of the firs, and fell with light thuds 
upon the ground. In the face of this unexpected 
shower, which entirely hid the entrance to the den, 
Lars was obliged to fall back a dozen paces ; but, as 
the glittering drizzle cleared away, he saw an enor- 
mous brown beast standing upon its hind legs, with 
widely distended jaws. He was conscious of no fear, 
but of a curious numbness in his limbs, and strange 
noises, as of warning shouts and cries, filling his 
ears. Fortunately, the great glare of the sun- 
smitten snow dazzled Bruin ; he advanced slowly, 
roaring savagely, but staring rather blindly before 
him out of his small, evil-looking eyes. Suddenly, 
when he was but a few yards distant, he raised 
his great paw, as if to rub away the cobwebs that 
obscured his sight. It was the moment for which 
the boy had waited. Now he had a clear aim I 
Quickly he pulled the trigger; the shot rever- 
berated from mountain to mountain, and in the 
same instant the huge brown bulk rolled in the 

i6 


242 


BOYHOOD IN NORWAY 


snow, gave a gasp, and was dead ! The spell was 
broken ! The silver bullet had pierced his heart. 
There was a curious unreality about the whole 
thing to Lars. He scarcely knew whether he was 
really himself or the hero of the fairy-tale. All that 
was left for him to do now was to go home and 
marry Stella, the delivered princess. 

The noises about him seemed to come nearer and 
nearer ; and now they sounded like human voices. 
He looked about him, and to his amazement saw 
his father and Marit, followed by two wood-cutters, 
who, with raised axes, were running toward him. 
Then he did not know exactly what happened ; but 
he felt himself lifted up by two strong arms, and 
tears fell hot and fast upon his face. 

“ My boy ! my boy ! ” said the voice in his ears, 
“ I expected to find you dead.” 

“ No, but the bear is dead,” said Lars, inno- 
cently. 

“ I didn’t mean to tell on you, Lars,” cried Marit, 
but I was so afraid, and then I had to.” 

The rumor soon filled the whole valley that the 
great Gausdale Bruin was dead, and that the boy 
Lars Tomlevold had killed him. It is needless to 
say that Lars Tomlevold became the parish hero 
from that day. He did not dare to confess in the 
presence of all this praise and wonder that at heart 
he was bitterly disappointed ; for when he came 
home, throbbing with wild expectancy, there stood 


THE BEAR THAT HAD A BANK ACCOUNT 243 

Stella before the kitchen door, munching a piece of 
bread ; and when she hailed him with a low whin- 
ny, he burst into tears. But he dared not tell any 
one why he was weeping. 

This story might have ended here, but it has a 
little sequel. The $1,750 which Bruin had to his 
credit in the bank had increased to $2,290 ; and it 
was all paid to Lars. A few years later, Martin 
Janson, who had inherited the estate of Moe from 
old Lars, failed in consequence of his daring for- 
est speculations, and young Lars was enabled to 
buy the farm at auction at less than half its value. 
Thus he had the happiness to bring his mother 
back to the place of her birth, of which she had 
been wrongfully deprived ; and Stella, who was 
now twenty-one years old, occupied once more her 
handsome box-stall, as in the days of her glory. 
And although she never proved to be a princess, 
she was treated as if she were one, during the few 
years that remained to her. 






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